by Stefano Vaccara
NEW YORK (UNITED STATES) (ITALPRESS) – The UN Security Council, meeting on Thursday afternoon of urgency on the repression of protests in Iran, the most explosive and emotionally powerful moment has arrived with the testimony of two dissidents and Iranian journalists in the United States, Masih Alinejad and Ahmad Batebi, invited by the United States to intervene in front of ambassadors. But their presence did not stop in the hall: immediately after the meeting, speaking with the journalists waiting, they relaunched with even more clear words, asking not only condemns, but concrete choices.
Alinejad, among the most famous Iranian voices in America, during his speech to the Council asked “real and concrete actions” to bring justice against those “ordina massacres” in Iran. “Millions of innocent and unarmed Iranians were silenced with bullets, mass arrests, prison and a total blackout of communications: No internet, no cell phones, no fixed lines. Iran is in total darkness.” Then he explained why he was there: “I am here to bring their voices into this room. I am here to tell you that in my beloved homeland, Iran, a brutal massacre took place.”.
The scene was very hard even on the symbolic level: Alinejad spoke in front of the Iranian delegation, accusing members of the Council of having forgotten “the privilege and responsibility” to sit in that hall. Addressing the Iranian diplomat a few meters, he recalled that the threat against her was real: “You tried to kill me!” In October, two men referred to as members of Russian organized crime were sentenced to 25 years in prison for inquiring an assassin, on a mandate attributed to the Iranian government, to kill her in her home in Brooklyn. A few minutes later, outside the hall, Alinejad further raised the tone. To the question of Italpress about what he really wanted from the international community, he answered without hesitation: “Action. Military action against the Islamic Republic. Otherwise, empty convictions, meetings one after another, endless meetings, will not save lives.” Alinejad insisted on the number of victims and the urgency of the moment, claiming that the time of diplomacy with the regime’s leaders has exhausted itself: “close the doors of diplomacy to these killers” and “open the doors of negotiation to the Iranian people.” He also recalled the assassination attempts against her: “I survived three plots to kill me,” he said, accusing the representatives of Tehran to the United Nations to “negade everything” while, in his words, the evidence of the American authorities tells more.
In his speech to the Security Council Ahmad Batebi, Iranian-American journalist and human rights activist, told his experience of repression. As a student, he said, he was arrested for participating in a protest and tortured until he was forced to “confess” in video of being an American paid spy: “I never did, but they tortured me to tell me.” According to Batebi, today in Iran the same script is repeated: citizens descended to the square to ask for rights are then shown by the regime as “mossad agents”.
Then, outside the classroom, answering the questions of the Italpress agency, Batebi addressed a direct message to young Iranians who risk their lives in the streets: He said that the world is watching them and that, if the protest holds, “the help will come”, because “this is the end of history” of the Islamic Republic. Also at Italpress, Batebi said that President Trump “until he did the best thing”, several times publicly supporting Iranian protesters and encouraging them to claim their rights. Then he added that “now is the time” that the United States “act” and “physically” support the Iranian people, to “close the history of the regime” and allow the Iranians to build “a new future”. To the question what he thought of the return of Shah, Batabi reiterated that the immediate goal, for those in the square, is only one: “change regime in Iran” and then leave “to the vote of the people” every choice on the political system.
– screenshot source from video Onu –
(ITALPRESS).
