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JINA MAHSA AMINI
The face of Iran's protests. Her life, her dreams
and her death.
In memory of Jina 'Mahsa' Amini, the cornerstone of the 'Zan.
Zendagi. Azadi revolution.
16 February 2023 | By Gino d'Artali
And also
Read all about the assasination of the 22 year young Jhina Mahsa
Amini or Zhina Mahsa Amini (Kurdistan-Iran) and the start of the Zan,
Zendagi, Azadi (Women, life, freedom) revolution in Iran
2022
and the latest news about the 'Women Live Freedom' Revolution per month in 2023:
October
15 - 1
--
September 30 - 16
--
September 17 - 1
--
August 31
- 18 --
August 15
- 1--
July 31 - 16
--July
15 -1--June
30 - 15--June 15-1--May 31 -16--
May 15-1--April--March--Feb--Jan
And
For all topics below that may hopefully interest you click on the
image:
all updates September 21, 2023
'BIOLOGICAL |
'IRANIAN JOURNALISTS |
'BLINDING |
<Persian social media is full of young people who say they were shot in the eye
by security forces>
Iranwire - October 11, 2023 - By AIDA
GHAJAR
Blinding as a Weapon (51): My Face can be Used as Evidence in a Just Court
Three or four times a day, he must put drops of artificial tears, betamethasone
and chloramphenicol, an antibiotic, in his eye to prevent further infection and
to treat pain, burning and itching. Farzad Moradinia was a worker and a labor
activist in Sanandaj, the provincial capital of Iranian Kurdistan, who has been
repeatedly arrested and imprisoned for his activities. He is one a victim of the
targeted shootings at the eyes of protesters during the 2022 nationwide
protests: he left Iran a year later because of the injury to his eye and
following constant security threats. We met him at a friend's house so that he
would tell us, on camera, about his activities and the moment that he was shot
when an armed security agent fired teargas at his face, blinded one of his eyes,
broke bones in his face and severely damaged his hearing in one ear. Farzad has
refused prostheses and plastic surgery to reconstruct his appearance. For Farzad,
his face is evidence of the crimes of the Islamic Republic which, someday, can
be presented to an international tribunal. <Although now I am suffering from
hearing and vision loss that, perhaps, has diminished my ability to take care of
my everyday affairs, although my skull has been fractured and I have been unable
to work for a year, and although I still suffer from chronic and continuous
pain, nothing has weakened my morale and my resolve to demand liberty and my
rights. We must live and living means resistance,> Farzad tells IranWire. Farzad,
aged 37, joined the labor movement in 2011 when he became a member of the
Coordinating Committee to Support Labor Unions in Sanandaj. He participated in
protest rallies in the same year. In 2012, he was arrested, violently, for the
first time, along with 60 other labor activists who had gathered for their
annual meeting. After 36 hours of interrogations in solitary confinement, he was
released without explanation. He was next arrested at his home during a raid by
masked plainclothes agents at 8am on December 7, 2014, just four months after he
was married. Agents also seized his personal belongings before transferring
Farzad to the detention center of the Intelligence Bureau in Sanandaj. After 26
days in solitary confinement and harsh interrogations, Judge Hossein Saeedi of
Branch 1 of Sanandaj Revolutionary Court sentenced him to a total of three years
in prison, two years for his union activities and one year for <propaganda
against the regime>. The trial lasted all of 15 minutes.
The roots of Farzad's labor activism lies in his lived experience. His father
was a seasonal worker for Sanandaj municipality. Hardships such as unemployment,
lack of insurance and financial difficulties forced him into the job market when
he was just 10 years old. <Seasonal workers like my father, who work outdoors,
in green spaces, have no insurance and no rights,> Farzad says. <Seven years of
insurance, severance pay and bonuses that the municipality, the Social Security
Insurance and the contractors working with municipality owed my father were
stolen from him. I tried hard. But after filing complaints and inquests at the
Ministry of Justice, the Social Security Insurance and the municipality, I found
out that this injustice towards the workers and the working class in Iran is
systematic. The law has given employers a free hand to violate workers' right.
For the Islamic Republic, cheap labor and the exploitation of workers and
children is a moneymaker.> However, years of activities for workers' rights, of
witnessing injustice towards not only the workers but also prisoners, not only
did not weaken Farzad Moradinia's resolve, but made him more determined to
continue fighting.
Broken Bones and Falling to the Ground
October 8, 2022, a day of protests and strikes that engulfed many Iranian cities
following the death of Mahsa Amini. The Islamic Republic's rule of injustice
turned into naked terror - and Farzad Moradinia was blinded in one eye as well
as suffering other serious injuries when he was shot at close range by an armed
security agent.
Sanandaj was on strike and the streets were almost clogged. Farzad had left home
on a personal errand. On Bahman 6 Avenue, one of the main streets of Sanandaj,
he came across a friend suffering from Parkinson's disease and, consequently,
could not walk properly. He was carrying a bag of medication and Farzad took his
hand to pull him to a side alley opposite Bahareh Mall, away from smoke and
possible harm by forces of repression.
Cars in the streets had started honking their horns, protesters had gathered in
groups and security forces, armed to the teeth and trigger happy, were ready to
shoot their fellow citizens. Farzad walked towards an agent who was standing at
the entrance to the alley, to object to the situation, but a police officer
struck him on the head with a baton. Blood spread over Farzad's head and face.
Despite this, he went to his friend, took his hand and they both entered the
alley. A teenage girl, horrified by the sounds of gunfire and shouting, was
sitting in the alley, with her hands over her head and screaming. Farzad went to
the girl to help her. Armed agents were standing six or seven meters from them
and, at that moment, his life changed forever. <The moment that I turned my face
towards the girl, suddenly I heard a shot and felt my face burning. There was a
lot of smoke. I fell to the ground and heard the agent shouting 'I got him!' And
my friend, crying, was shouting 'you killed him!' Then I heard the agent say:
'Shoot this one, too! Shoot this one, too!' I heard another shot and I no longer
heard my friend's voice.> Farzad's friend had been shot with pellets but Farzad
still did not know what had happened to him. When he stood up, pieces of him
literally fell to the ground: <When I was shot, I had no idea with what kind of
a bullet. Later I learned that it had been a teargas round. White pieces were
coming out of my face and my cheekbones that, along with the white of my eye,
fell into my hand .... I put my hand over my face and we managed to escape.>
The Hospital's <Kurdistan Pellet Ward>
The direct shot to Farzad's face broke bones in his sinus, nose, eye socket and
skull. Some of the broken bones and the white of his eye were falling from him
after he was shot but the remainder were lodged in his temple, damaging his
hearing. They went to Sanandaj's Kowsar Hospital. The number of injured coming
to the hospital was increasing minute by minute. Most of the injured had also
been shot in the face. Security agents meanwhile raided the hospital. Fearing
arrest, Farzad Moradinia, his friend and others who had been also injured hid in
various wards of the hospital until they could escape. Their escape ended in
Tehran, in Farabi Hospital. When they finally reached the hospital after 12
hours, Farzad lost consciousness: <When I reached Farabi Hospital, a safe place,
I fainted from the pain. I spent a night in the ICU.> Farzad initially told
hospital staff that he had been injured in a <workplace accident.> But then a
nurse told him they knew the truth: <She laughed and said: 'Do not worry.
Nothing is going to happen here. We have allocated a ward to eye injury
patients, and we call it the Kurdistan Pellet Ward.' That was when I found out
that most of the injured were coming from Kurdistan.> <Injuries do not know any
boundaries,> Farzad adds. <We were all injured by the same regime. But the
tragedy of those who could not even get medical treatment in their own towns was
overwhelming. Like me, they had escaped and had gone somewhere else to get
medical treatment.>
His Face as Court Evidence
Farzad Moradinia and his wife Negin Salehi had been watching TV when they heard
the news that Mahsa Amini had been killed. They burst into tears, he says, when
they were faced with this <pain of the people who are not even allowed to own
their body and clothing, and this dispossession has gone beyond beliefs and the
way of thinking to reach the most self-evident rights of human beings, the right
to own their bodies and how they dress.> His years of fighting for workers'
rights, his experience as a child laborer, his time in prison where he witnessed
the miserable treatment of prisoners, as well as his awareness of the importance
of public protests, brought Farzad Moradinia to the streets to join the
protesters. <It is the duty of any human being with a sense of responsibility to
respond to this crime, to come to the street and to protest,> Farzad says.
<Protest is a manifestation of awareness and valor.> As Farzad Moradinia's
testimony shows, Iranian workers went beyond their own labor-related demands and
participated in the 2022 nationwide protests in impressive numbers. The labor
activist believes that the cry for liberty was one of the greatest achievements
of the <Woman, Life, Freedom> movement: <You don't have to have an academic
education or to be a radical like those [protesters] in the 1980s, 1990s and
2000s. This yearning for unmitigated freedom is in human nature, regardless of
gender and age. Freedom is your right.>
With such a worldview, Farzad Moradinia is not willing to use plastic surgery or
a prosthesis to restore his appearance. <The only reason I am against plastic
surgery and putting a prosthesis in my eye is to be able to attend, with this
face, the trial of those who ordered this crime and those who carried it out,>
Farzad says. <I do not want to make this crime look normal - to appear that
nothing has happened.> >>
Source:
https://iranwire.com/en/blinding-as-a-weapon/121352-blinding-as-a-weapon-51-my-face-is-court-evidence/
copyright Womens'
Liberation Front 2019/cryfreedom.net 2023