Free Republic

Voter turnout in elections in Iran hit what appears a historic low. According to unofficial accounts, only about 40 percent of the electorate cast a ballot Friday in separate votes for the country’s national parliament and the Assembly of Experts, the political body that will select the successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s 84-year-old supreme leader. An opposition boycott and widespread disenchantment set the mood, even as the theocratic regime pushed its citizens to come out to the polls. (excerpt) The turnout numbers may mark the lowest since the 1979 revolution that brought the Islamic regime into power. In Tehran,...

The billionaire founder of Craigslist, Craig Newmark, is using his fortune to further shape journalism into partisan activism to help Democrats win elections. He is the nation’s leading financier of the “mis”- and “disinformation” industries and is now the largest private stakeholder in America’s legacy journalism schools. The most recent Twitter Files released by Matt Taibbi add a deeply disturbing new layer to the story. They show Newmark is at the very heart of an incestuous web of government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and corporate media institutions operating in concert to censor political opponents on social media. Newmark is financing the...

Iran has jailed for six and a half years on national security charges an Irish-French citizen held since October, his family said, adding that health problems meant his life was in danger. Bernard Phelan, a Paris-based travel consultant, was arrested in October in the northeastern city of Mashhad and has been held ever since. He is one of some two dozen foreigners jailed in Iran who campaigners see as hostages held to extract concessions from the West.

Dozens of Iranian schoolgirls needed hospital treatment on Tuesday after another mysterious poisoning, a news agency reported, the latest in a spate of suspected attacks in the Islamic republic. Hundreds of cases of respiratory distress have been reported in the past three months among schoolgirls mainly in the holy city of Qom, south of Tehran, with some needing hospitalisation. A government official said on Sunday that the attacks were believed to be a deliberate attempt to force the closure of girls' schools. "Today (Tuesday) at noon, a number of students were poisoned at the Khayyam Girls' School in the city...

Iran's currency is in free-fall, falling almost 10% over the weekend, breaking through the psychologically important half-million mark to more than 600,000 rials to the dollar. The plunging currency led the Tehran bazaar to close, an event that preceded the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Just a few dozen miles across the border, Iraqi Kurds were watching developments closely, questioning how quickly the rial rate could fall below 1 million and the consequences.

The news organization controlled by the Islamic Republic of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei urged on Wednesday that the Iranian authorities seize and prosecute German diplomats in Tehran in response to Berlin's expulsion of two Iranian diplomats. Kayhan, the news outlet that serves as Khamenei's mouthpiece, demanded that German embassy staff not be allowed to leave Iran in response to Berlin's eviction of two Iranian diplomats on Tuesday due to the clerical regime imposing the death penalty on the German citizen Jamshid Sharmahd, who is also a legal resident of California.

A Farsi-language satellite news channel based in London long critical of Iran's theocratic government said Saturday it had moved its broadcasts to Washington “to protect the safety of its journalists” after reportedly being targeted by Tehran. The alleged targeting of Iran International comes as Tehran also has long harassed members of the BBC's Persian service for their work reporting on the country. -excerpt- Reached for comment, Iran International referred to a statement saying that “threats had grown to the point that it was felt it was no longer possible to protect the channel’s staff” or the public around its studio...

A group of prominent exiled Iranian opposition figures pleaded Friday for unity and an end to infighting to help the nationwide protests of recent months to replace Iran's Islamic theocracy with a secular democracy. The eight figures, who included Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, said they were working on a charter for a transition to a new pluralistic system that would be followed by free elections. -excerpt- ...the participants shared a common goal to "overthrow and transition from the Islamic republic", starting with a transitional council and then elections.

Excerpt - They were busted in early November because women are not allowed to dance in public in Iran, let alone with a man, Agence France-Presse said. Haghighi also appeared in the video without a headscarf, in solidarity with protests over the September death of Mahsa Amini, 22, after her arrest for not abiding by strict hijab rules. Haghighi and her beau were this week each sentenced to 10 1/2 years in prison by a revolutionary court in Tehran,... -excerpt- ...convicted of “encouraging corruption and public prostitution” as well as “gathering with the intention of disrupting national security,”

Iranian authorities have arrested actress Taraneh Alidoosti, the star of the 2016 Oscar-Award-winning film “The Salesman,” on charges of spreading falsehoods after she posted on Instagram that the country’s recent execution of Mohsen Shekari was a “disgrace to humanity.” Iranian state media IRNA said Alidoosti was detained because she failed to provide “documentation in line with her claims,” one week after she expressed solidarity in an Instagram post with a man executed in recent anti-government protests, multiple outlets reported Saturday.

Aida Rostami, a young doctor who helped injured protestors, had half of her face crushed, a broken hand and a missing eye. Regime told her family that she'd had an accident.

Medics treating protesters in Iran said they were seeing a difference in the type of injuries inflicted on men and women by the security forces — with the female activists often being shot in their faces, breasts and genitals.. multiple doctors and nurses who have been surreptitiously caring for wounded demonstrators during months of unrest said it appeared that officers tasked with stopping the protests have been targeting specific body parts in women. One doctor from Isfahan province speaking to the outlet on condition of anonymity said he believed the authorities “wanted to destroy the beauty of these women.” Iran...

Iran was slapped with fresh sanctions Friday after carrying out its first execution over demonstrations that have shaken the regime for nearly three months, as activists called for fresh protests. Mohsen Shekari, 23, was hanged Thursday after being found guilty of "moharebeh", or "enmity against God", (except).. (excerpt)The judiciary said Shekari was arrested after blocking a Tehran street and striking a member of the Basij paramilitary force linked to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with a machete -- a wound that required 13 stitches

Iranian Regime national tv Channel One hacked about an hour ago. During a broadcast of Khamenie speech, a red crosshair appeared over his face and chanting of Women. Life. Freedom. There was writing to the side saying "Rise up. Join us". Also 4 photos at the bottom of the screen of young people killed and additional writing: "The blood of our youth is dropping from your paws". Also, there was a huge banner in the middle of Tehran highway today that read: We are no longer afraid of you. We will fight. Also, attempted attack on IRI ambassador in Denmark....

"Recruiting and brainwashing children to become martyrs for Khamenei, Islamic Republic of Iran's supreme leader, sanctioned by the US. This video doesn't come from Iran. It was filmed in Houston, Texas this month. This isn't religious freedom. This is pure fundamentalism." [I have no confirmation it's Houston, but if you look at the end, the background street scene sure looks like cars going by on a U.S. street. Maybe someone who lives in Houston recognizes the location?]

President Joe Biden's administration announced its 17th Operation Fly Formula mission on Monday as marketing data shows the baby formula shortage is getting worse. The administration announced two flights to transport Nestlé Health Science amino acid-based formula from Switzerland to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York on July 21 and 22. The delivery will include the equivalent of 802,446 8-ounce bottles of formula, which will be distributed primarily to hospitals and home health care providers. But, despite the rash of flights the administration has announced, U.S. stores are still struggling to stock baby formula on their shelves. Formula availability...

A judge has ordered the federal government to hand over emails from Joe Biden's White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki after she allegedly admitted to "lying" to the media in one thread. The court requested a review of Psaki's communications regarding conversations she had about secret meetings the Obama-Biden administration held with the Islamic Republican of Iran.

Forty-two years ago, Iranians, fed up with the oppression of the 50-year-old dictatorship of the Pahlavi dynasty, joined hands in hopes of gaining freedom in a revolution that overthrew the Shah in 1979. The revolution brought a new dictatorship to power. A theocracy that still rules today with an iron hand. But what has the clerical regime achieved after 42 years? Political and civil liberties Iranians wanted freedom more than anything else in the 1979 revolution. The founder of the Islamic Republic, Rohullah Khomeini took advantage of the people’s desire for freedom and promised freedom to all segments of the...

From the failed Chris Wallace-Biden tag-team attempt against Trump, to biased moderator Susan Page’s shrill interruptions of Vice President Pence, to the Presidential Debate Commission’s ridiculous and politically motivated effort to force a “virtual debate” on Biden’s behalf, patriotic Americans have caught on to the fact that there is something deeply unfair about the presidential debates. This clear bias has justifiably led many observers to wonder what is wrong with the Presidential Debate Commission. Just yesterday, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany called out the Commission directly: Kayleigh’s characterization of the Commission is of course correct. However, its corruption and...

While the Islamic Republic is preparing to celebrate the 41st anniversary of the 1979 revolution, the heir to the last Shah of Iran, Prince Reza Pahlavi has described the rulers of the clergy-dominated country as an "alien cult" composed of "criminals", "thieves" who are "doomed." The Islamic Republic is set to celebrate the revolution on February 11 and present itself as the linchpin of unified Iran. The Prince, who lives in exile in the U.S. said in a new message, "The usurpers of Iran are set to cover up their latest criminal act and massacre of the people in November...