The Obdurate Autocratic Failings of the Chinese Communist Party on Zero-COVID

"The party and the people are trying to seek a new equilibrium."

"There will be some intsability in the process."

"Without the clear signal of party leader divisions -- I would expect this kind of protest might not last very log."

"[It is] unimaginable [that Xi would back down, and the party is experienced in handling protests]."

Hung Ho-fung, Johns Hopkins University

"[The West's vaccines offer] a major solution [to China's COVID problems."

"[According to health experts zero-COVID is unlikely to be achieved until vaccine uptake among China's elderly sees an improvement]."

"[Efforts are underway to increase coverage but] it's unlikely things will get better for the next  half of the new year."

Xi Chen, associate professor, Yale University

A protester is arrested by police in Shanghai on Sunday night. HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/AFP via Getty Image

 

Local authorities in China, making no allusion to credit the mass protests springing up all over China against the crude lockup methods being employed to stem the rising tide of COVID-19 outbreaks, have begun to ease imposed restrictions reflecting the state's zero-COVID mandate. In Beijing, the city government announced it plans to phase out gating to block access to apartment compounds where infections are diagnosed.

Manufacturing and trade centre Guangzhou, the current hot-spot in the latest wave of infections, announced that selected residents no longer will be required to undergo mass testing. The stringent measures originally in place to minimize deaths at the same time that other countries suffered magnitudes of infections and deaths no longer has the silent consent of the Chinese population.

According to the Chinese Communist Party ruling China, anti-coronavirus measures must continue "targeted and precise", while at the same time the least possible disruption should be caused to people's lives; local officials threatened with their jobs or similar punishments should outbreaks occur, codify their own strategies to match the central government's zero-COVID command-and-control demands.

Their response has been the imposition of quarantines and allied restrictions exceeding what the central government recommends. Hardships imposed on the population appear to be of no concern to the Xi administration, beyond the anodyne recommendations that lockdowns not cause community unrest. Millions of people in Shanghai were placed under strict lockdown in the spring, resulting in food scarcity and access to medical care being restricted.

Despite the ensuing turmoil, Xi loyalist, the city's party secretary, saw appointment to the No.2 position of the Communist Party. On the past weekend, protests were so sweeping in numbers and inclusivity many from among the educated urban middle class of the ethnic Han majority were in full vocal attendance. This is the group the ruling party relies upon to recognize a post-Tiananmen agreement that a better quality of life would accompany autocratic rule.

Following a fire on Thursday that killed at least ten people living in an apartment building in the city of Urumqi, where residents have been locked into their homes for four months, furious protests erupted particularly when the city council suggested those that died were insufficiently motivated to save themselves, prompting an avalanche of angry online questions whether firefighters or people attempting to escape the fire were blocked by locked doors or similar pandemic restrictions.

Foreign governments have suggested to Beijing that it use vaccines developed in the West to improve protection for its people, and once more effective vaccines are widely used the government could reconsider and ratchet back the draconian restrictions of the current zero-COVID policy. Beijing has consistently refused to import the mRNA-based more highly successful vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, insisting its own home-grown vaccines are effective.

 

They are not, however. Moreover, the most vulnerable in the population, the elderly, have not received vaccinations in numbers that should satisfy any responsible government. Analysis indicates that millions of unprotected people could perish under current circumstances should zero-COVID be abandoned. The acceptance of Western vaccinations could turn that scenario around.

"Europe and Germany have had very good experience with administering mRNA vaccinations", stated Steffen Hebestreit, adding that Olaf Scholz had "made this clear" to Chinese officials during a visit by the German chancellor to China. China is steadfast in its reliance on its own vaccines based on older technology, failing to offer the same protection as the West's vaccines against severe disease and death.

"'Zero COVID' [was] supposed to demonstrate the superiority of the 'Chinese model', but ended up demonstrating the risk that when authoritarian regimes make mistakes, those mistakes can be colossal."

"But I think the regime has backed itself into a corner and has no way to  yield. It has lots of force, and if necessary, it will use it."

Andrew Nathan, Chinese politics specialist, Columbia University

Protesters are fed up with lockdowns, but their government is not budging

Behind Enemy Lines on the Home Front

"[Putin is] clearly weaponizing winter to inflict immense suffering on the Ukrainian people [and] trying to freeze the country into submission."

"Having struggled on the battlefield Moscow is now adopting a cowardly and inhumane strategy that punishes Ukrainian men, women and children."

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations

"We have chopped wood, we will survive."

"They [Russian invaders] have destroyed my apartment already. That was worse than this. This is our life and our life has prepared us."

"We will not give up, and everything that happened in March was much worse than now. We already know it can be worse."

Tatiana, Ukrainian internally displaced citizen

"I am a bit worried about winter but we have been preparing getting firewood ready and warm clothing."

"More than anything we hope that there will not be another invasion."

"Although we had no electricity [for six months under Russian military occupation], somehow we survived."

"Human beings will find a way to survive in any conditions."

Artem Famenko, 39, municipal water department worker, Izyum, Ukraine

Tetiana Reznychenko, a resident of the Ukrainian village of Horenka, shovels snow near her apartment building, which has no electricity, heating or running water, November  2022

 

In preparation for being plunged into the icy depths of winter, Ukrainians in the east in particular are gathering firewood, knowing how imperative it is to be self-reliant at a time their country is under siege by an aggressor pursuing a punishing strategy of forcing millions of ordinary citizens to scrounge for materials in the hopes of getting through a stark winter without electricity and heat; possibly a shortage of food and medicines, and potable water.

The city of Izyum in the east, occupied by the Russian military for six months and finally freed from Russian occupation and the indignities, dangers and hardships accompanying that state, are relieved they have been returned to Ukrainian rule through a Ukrainian military counteroffensive that routed the Russian military. The city, however, was ransacked and much of it ruined. And now that the Russians hastily retreated, they still aim their missiles and drones at the city, acts of war against civilian infrastructure.

City residents will take whatever opportunity presents itself to stock up on firewood, including chopping  ammunition crates discarded by the retreating Russian military. The outlook for survival is grim but they face it with confidence, Ukrainians preparing themselves, knowing that mid-winter will bring plunging temperatures as low as -20C and the prospect of a winter as miserable as those they suffered through during World War II.

 

Members of Ukrainian army prepare BM-21 Grad rockets to be launched in Bakhmut, Donetsk, Ukraine on November 26, 2022

 

They are under no illusions, knowing full well that it is not only the brutal winter cold without adequate heating and electricity that will test their endurance, but the constant shelling of civilian infrastructure, from apartment buildings to hospitals that will challenge the resolve of the people to endure and hope for better days and an end to the 9-month-long war. There is much work to be done, firewood chopped and ready, windows to be covered for cold-insulation and amassing warm winter clothing.

"[Putin's Wednesday barrage had created a situation not seen for 80 or 90 years] -- a country on the European continent where there was no light."

"Together we endured nine months of full-scale war and Russia has not found a way to break us, and will not find one."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

"Put simply, this winter will be about survival."

"We expect two to three million more people to leave their homes in search of warmth and safety."

Dr. Hans Kluge, Europe director World Health Organization

For most people who refused to leave their city for other parts of Ukraine more secure and further from enemy lines, the fear is the possibility of a return by the Russian occupiers. The occupation from March to just a few weeks ago was agonizing, a terrible time in the lives of the residents of Izyum and other nearby communities. The prospect of their winter hardships while concerning, seems less worrisome than the thought of falling under Russian occupation again.

 

Ongoing waves of Russian missiles and explosive drones badly damaged the entire country's power grid, knocking up to half of the country's capacity off line. Some of the most damaging attacks struck the system in midweek. Half of Kyiv was still without power two days later, while engineers struggled to reconnect people to the grid. Authorities established "invincibility centres" for people to charge their phones, to warm up and to be given hot drinks. 

Aid agencies warn that winter will see misery on a greater scale afflict a people already under huge stress by relentless Russian missile attacks targeting the width and breadth of the country Russian is doing its best to eviscerate Ukraine. Over six million Ukrainian citizens left their homes in a mass movement to other, safer parts of the country. A like number of Ukrainian refugees have gone abroad for safe haven. Their government has appealed to them to remain where they are through the winter, to save energy for use in hospitals and other critical social welfare establishments.

A view from Kyiv after the snow hits capital city on November 19, 2022 as Russia-Ukraine war continues in Ukraine

 

For Ukrainians living in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, no assistance has trickled through since the beginning of the conflict. With winter offering more difficulties to daily living, the concern is that they may succumb to the necessity to make perilous trips across front lines. "It's going to be an incredibly difficult winter and providing humanitarian assistance is a matter of life and death" Marysia Zapasnik, Ukraine director for the International Rescue Committee aid agency, said grimly.Troops on either side, are facing living in the open under freezing rain conditions.

Some Ukrainian servicemen are beginning to suffer from trench foot, a condition associated with swelling and numbness of the feet. Hopes are high nonetheless that they will be able to endure the rigours of winter better than their poorly equipped Russian counterparts. Lacking proper winter equipment and clothing, newly mobilized Russian forces complain of being thrown into the forest unprepared.

"Of course we are nervous. We understand winter is coming and we understand that the attacks will continue."

"All these strikes are concentrating our community, concentrating our nation to unite. Yes the situation is hard, but it's a great mistake for our enemy to think they can change the will of the Ukrainian people."

Mayor Igor Terekhov, Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine

Winter weather could disproportionately harm poorly-equipped Russian forces in Ukraine,' defence analysts from the ISW said (destroyed Russian convoy pictured in Bucha, March 1 2022

Beijing's Zero-COVID Protests

"[It is necessary] to strengthen the management and service guarantee [of quarantine centres and field hospitals where people who test positive for COVID-19 or ha.cve been in close contact with an infected person are taken by police]."

"[Authorities must] further accelerate [their construction and] coordinate the allocation of space, facilities, materials, personnel and other resources."

Beijing city government spokesperson Xu Hejian

People sing slogans while gathering on a street in Shanghai. (Photo by Hector RETAMAL / AFP)

 

"On the second night of protests, 2,000 miles northwest of the Foxconn factory, a fire broke out in a residential compound in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang region. Ten died. Neighbours videoed the inferno on their phones, triggering yet another wave of anger online. Some pointed out that the youngest victim was only three and had lived almost his entire life under zero Covid. Others speculated that doors had been sealed in the block as part of the lockdown, meaning victims couldn’t escape."

"Late on Friday night, the Urumqi authorities made things worse with a press conference which seemed to blame the victims for their ‘lack of survival know-how’. Fury, and protests, ensued."

"Whether the fire was made worse by lockdown or not, the tragedy and the callous official response confirmed what many already suspected: their lives are cheap in the name of pandemic control."

Cindy Yu, Assistant Editor, The Spectator, U.K.

 

In some parts of China's capital, residents began sweeping items off supermarket shelves, while the urgency of their demands were overwhelming delivery apps on Friday. The city government had ordered an urgent need to speed up construction of COVID-19 quarantine centres and field hospitals. China's Zero-COVID policy is not to be relaxed, its government has made it quite clear that it will not tolerate the spread of the pathogen, and a recent upsurge in cases has only increased its resolve.

 

Chinese citizens, beyond weary with the constant lockdowns and stern conditions that have compromised their quality of life for too long, are desperate to see an end to these unlivable conditions and the constant threat of isolation, impairing their ability to work, to attend school, to buy food, to acquire needed medications, in short, the ruination of normal life, being forced to live under abysmally unnatural circumstances. Deprived of normalcy.

 

The uncertainty and fear surrounding unconfirmed reports of lockdowns in some select districts in the capital fuelled a demand for food and other basic living supplies fuelling unusually large turnouts of shoppers in the northern suburbs of the city, resulting in market shelves emptying of products in quick order, in a city of 21 million people.

 

Across the country daily cases of COVID are reaching record numbers with Friday alone notching up 32,695 new cases, almost half of which were in Beijing, mostly asymptomatic. Field hospitals along with improvised quarantine centres have been thrown together in gymnasiums, exhibition centres, where large open indoor spaces have become synonymous with poor sanitation, scarce food supplies, overcrowding and lighting that remains bright for 24 hours a day.

 

Instructions not to leave compounds have gone out to most residents, watching themselves being fenced in, where workers in white hazmat suits stop unauthorized people to ensure residents have recent negative test results on cellphone health apps before they can gain entry. University campuses are closed, students shifted to online classes. Grocery delivery service is at full capacity. Some delivery personnel are  unable to appear for work at grocery deliveries, with their own compounds locked down. 

 

The World Health Organization has called for a change in operations from the zero-COVID strategy, a recommendation that the Chinese Communist Party rejects. Cases and death counts in China remain low in comparison to other parts of the world, yet Beijing insists on isolating every case to entirely eliminate the virus. Where other governments eased antivirus controls, relying on vaccinations and immunity from past infections to aid in death prevention and serious illness, China's President Xi Jinping is immovable in his conviction that China can tame Nature.

 

Confronting authorities in Shanghai, some protesters called for Chinese leader Xi

The Democratically Helpful Chinese Communist Party

"They are by and large an extension of the apparatus of Beijing."

"I definitely think this is an area where our security agencies or the police should pay close attention."

Karen Woods, founder, independent Canadian Chinese Political Affairs Committee

 

"This really is like an ideological invasion."

"I think that undermines our national security, our social security."

Jonathan Fon, Toronto paralegal

 

Deposit Photos

"{The Chinese Council for Western Ontario Elections'  goal is simply to] introduce Canadian democracy to the Chinese community, to help Chinese Canadians better understand Canadian elections, participate in the democratic process, and participate actively in elections."

"We support candidates of any race, as long as they oppose racial discrimination and support multiculturalism."

"We are willing to share our network resources with them to help them gain recognition and support from Chinese voters."

Toronto businessman Guo BaoZhang, executive president, Canada Toronto Fuqing Business Association

The Canada Toronto Fuqing Business Association building in Markham, Ontario. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post/File

Now that is really interesting. Chinese Canadians have a long history of residence and citizenship in Canada. A history that dates back to the 19th Century with the building of Canada's national railways. Chinese Canadians have established themselves in every facet of life in Canada, from little shop owners to the professions of law and medicine, to professorships in Canadian universities and to the ordinary-man-in-the-street or family-on-your street category.

As Canadian citizens, they know all about Canadian politics, they pay their taxes and they vote in all elections just like any other Canadians. Now, in the last few  years Beijing has turned its eyes on these Canadian citizens of Chinese extraction -- including many who have more recently arrived in Canada as immigrants or to study at Canadian universities, from both the mainland and Hong Kong. Beijing's United Front Work Department operates in tandem with Chinese diplomats assigned to Canada in Chinese consulates and embassy to impress on Chinese Canadians their obligations to China.

That obligation as ethnic Chinese, is to help promote China and China's interests broadly, within Canada. In the 2019 general election, Canadian Intelligence tracked the Chinese Communist Party's interference in promoting candidates of Chinese extraction suborned by China through ideological indoctrination and financial funding to election wins. It has also been revealed that political insiders defend and promote China's interests in various provincial and federal legislatures.

Now the introduction of a new organization whose goals on the surface are to assist Chinese Canadians in becoming more accomplished members of a democracy. Who might've thought? Yet another group has infiltrated Canada whose purpose is to further the interests of Beijing in a country that it is clearly at odds with, given fairly recent events, and a new, frosty relationship between China and Canada. China's growing aggressive tendencies are not limited to Canada, they surface elsewhere as well.

The website of the Canada Toronto Fuqing Business Association identifies it as having been established under the guidance of the United Front Work Department, itself a branch of the Chinese Communist Party with a clear mission to expand Beijing's worldwide influence. Influence made its presence years ago with the endowment by China in Western university-based Confucius Institutes; established ostensibly to help the world know of the wisdom and culture of China.

Beijing is well known for its ulterior motives in relations with other countries; its constant espionage feelers out via Chinese-loyalists in relaying back to China industrial, military and political state secrets. It has latterly been revealed that Beijing operatives and police forces have opened 'police stations' in Canada as well as in other foreign countries to keep tabs on expatriate Chinese, and to 'persuade' those critical of Beijing to return to China, under the guise of giving them assistance in renewing passports and driver's licenses; the while subtly threatening the well-being of family members in China.

The Canadian Security and Intelligence Service saw fit to brief Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office in January regarding a Chinese program that funded 11 candidates sympathetic to China during the last federal electon; a member of the Ontario legislature and community groups were engaged as go-betweens. In a brief, unscheduled meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 meeting in Indonesia, Trudeau claims to have raised the matter of Chinese political interference in Canada. Followed by Trudeau later denying he had ever been briefed.

Beijing's underhanded, interfering CCP-linked groups have not yet been challenged by the Government of Canada in a manner that would reflect the unwelcome nature of their organizational destabilization of the country. That Beijing is the least bit involved in promoting anti-discriminatory measures in Canada is beyond ironic, given its treatment of Tibetans and Muslim Uyghurs in Tibet and Xinjiang.

A multi-party committee in Ottawa has agreed to examine China's influence in Canada's elections following a Global News story citing a Beijing campaign to subvert Canadian democracy.

Calling Out FIFA

"FIFA today prohibited a statement for diversity and human rights -- those are values to which it is committed in its own statutes."

"From our point of view this is more than frustrating and, I think, an unprecedented action in World Cup history."

Bernd Neuendorf, president, German soccer federation

"Today we feel contempt for an organization that has shown its true values by giving the yellow card to players and the red card to tolerance."

Football Supporters Association, Great Britain

"As national federations we can't put our players in a position where they could face sporting sanctions, including bookings [as threatened FIFA penalties, should World Cup team captains wear rainbow armbands]."

Seven European soccer federations' joint statement

England's Harry Kane is seen wearing a rainbow-coloured 'One Love' armband during an UEFA Nations League football match in London's Wembley Stadium on Sept. 26, 2022. The captains of seven European nations will not wear the armbands in World Cup games after threats from FIFA to show yellow cards to the players. (Carl Recine/Action Images/Reuters)

"This is FIFA's fault. FIFA were the ones who awarded the World Cup to Qatar in the first place, knowing the stance that they take on human rights."

"Because it's not just about how LGBT fans are treated. It's also how the migrant workers who built the infrastructure that's been needed for the World Cup have been treated. And also how women are treated in Qatar. It's not just about our community. It's about basic freedoms."

"One of the things that we've seen, first-hand, is that once you get engagement from the players, the attitude of the media and of the fans around you changes completely. Once it's not just you and your group standing up for what's right, and it's the players here on the pitch as well, saying, "Actually, yeah, we support them and we stand with them," it opens all sorts of doors. It enables conversations to happen at a much faster rate. And it enables real change to happen."

"So to see the opportunity for that show of solidarity on the biggest stage that football has taken away from us is, it's horrible."

Rob Sanderson, member, Pride In Football, a network of LGBT+ fan groups in the U.K., and 3 Lions Pride, an LGBT+ fan group for England.

Rob Sanderson is a member of Pride In Football, a network of LGBT+ fan groups in the U.K., and 3 Lions Pride, an LGBT+ fan group for England. (Submitted by Rob Sanderson)

 

All is not rosy in Doha, Qatar as the Wold Cup of Soccer taking place in Doha, continues to be controversial. Seven European soccer team captains had let it be known prior to arrival in Qatar that their intention was to wear rainbow armbands in solidarity with the LGBTQ-2+ community discriminated against in Qatar as in most Islamic-majority countries as offensive and a sin against religious verities. 

FIFA was moved to threaten on-field penalties for players should the captains persist in support of the armbands reflecting the "One Love" campaign. Soccer's governing body gave warning that players would be shown yellow cards, two of which would lead to expulsion of players from their game of the momet and one to follow. 

That threat served to force abandonment of the armband=wearing intention. They had foreseen that the wearing of armbands might result in some rejection, but their conjecture went no further than a nominal fine. FIFA, however, cited the conspicuous nature of the armbands to be a violation of official FIFA rules. A last-minute 'reminder' that seemed to take the teams by surprise in its severity.

 

Three days previous to this condemnation and the announcement, the sale of beer was peremptorily banned under pressure from the government of Qatar. Prior to that surprise announcement FIFA president Gianni Infantino delivered a peculiar speech of solidarity with ethnic and religious differences and the plight of the underprivileged, proclaiming himself to be in total sympathy, chastising any element of criticism from the international community over the venue. 

The heart-shaped multicoloured logo of the "One Love" campaign promoting inclusion and diversity in soccer and society, in their opinion, was a universal statement of brotherly acceptance and support of an oppressed community which has finally received the recognition due it in the west, with the Middle East lagging far behind. 

The decision spurred Gurchaten Sandhu, of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association based in Geneva to criticize the fact that FIFA placed "athletes in a very, very awkward" position. "You've bound the hands of the national teams. They're there to compete", he stated in exasperation and frustration.

Captain Harry Kane gestures wearing a FIFA-approved black armband with a sign 'No discrimination' during a World Cup group B soccer match between England and Iran at the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha, Qatar, on Monday. (Pavel Golovkin/The Associated Press)

Toppling the Iranian Regime

"[The Islamic Republic's] strategic patience [is wearing thin; Tehran is preparing to[] punish [them: the U.S., United Kingdom, Israel and Saudi Arabia for their role in fomenting protests in Iran]."

"[The U.K. would] pay [for harbouring journalists working for a Persian-language satellite channel based in London whom British police have warned that the IRGC] represents an imminent, credible and significant risk to their lives and those of their families]."

Esmaeil Khatib, Iranian Intelligence Minister

 

"[We warned back in 2006 that Iran represents a threat to] the entire free world [as it] is not only seeking nuclear weapons, it is also destabilizing Lebanon with its Hezbollah proxy, supporting Palestinian terrorist groups, fueling Shiite militancy in Iraq and urging that Israel be wiped off the map."

National Post editorial

 

"[The National Post, as an institution, has been sanctioned by the Iranian Foreign Ministry for its] anti-Iran approach."

"[The sanctions are being imposed on the newspaper and eight individuals] for supporting terrorism and the Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group, inciting and encouraging terrorist acts and violence against the people of Iran, propagating false information about Iran and participation in the implementation and escalation of oppressive sanctions against the people of Iran."

"Obviously, the sanctions will not rule out the criminal prosecution of the individuals in competent courts of law due to their involvement in criminal actions."

National Post, 4 November 2022

In this photo taken by an individual not employed by the Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran, Iranians protests the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was detained by the morality police last month, in Tehran, Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022. Photo by AP Photo/Middle East Images

The Conservative-led government of then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper closed off diplomatic relations with Iran in 2012. Cited were Iran's intrusions in Canada on the lives of Iranian-Canadians, an 8-month attack on the British embassy in Tehran giving notice that diplomats are in danger there. The fact that Iran was providing military aid to the Assad regime in the civil war in Syria, another; failing to comply with UN resolutions on its nuclear program, along with support of terrorist groups.
Also cited was Iran's routine threatening of Israel's existence, its racist antisemitic rhetoric and genocidal incitement. Official Canada spoke of Iran as "among the world's worst violators of human rights".

 

The Liberal, Trudeau government that followed stated its intention of restoring diplomatic relations with Iran. And in fact, negotiations between Canada and the Islamic Republic were taking place to achieve that end. Given more recent episodes in Iran's ongoing persecution of its people and its new role in providing Russia with killer drones in Ukraine, along with the stalemate between the IAEA over nuclear inspections and the continued stalling on a nuclear program that is close to achieving Tehran's purpose, capped by the murder by morality police of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman, resulting in widespread protests, diplomatic renewal is no longer on the horizon.

 

 The ongoing protests erupting in every city across the country have brought out the country's police forces making use of deadly force. Estimates vary widely, but according to the group Human Rights Activists in Iran the most recent figures are over 300 dead, although other sources place that figure much higher. Tens of thousands of Iranians have been arrested. A week ago the Iranian parliament voted in favour of the death penalty to teach them -- protesters -- "a good lesson". The possbility of mass executions cannot be entirely discounted should the regime feel itself endangered.

 

Mourners chanted anti-establishment slogans at the funerals of two protesters killed in Javanroud  Hengaw

 

In the past decade, an estimated 6,876 Iranians have been executed, among them 67 youth and 185 women. The execution of protesters for crimes against god and nation are in their nascent stages. The International Atomic Energy Agency has released a report noting the Islamic Republic has amassed some 62.3 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium, a mere step from weapons-grade. Last week an IRGC official laid claim to his country's having developed hypersonic missiles able to evade modern air-defence systems.

 

The current government of Canada has been derelict in dealing adequately with the threat that Iran poses to the international community. It remains hesitant to list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, which it clearly is, and despite the fact that the Parliament of Canada voted in favour of doing just that. It would be humorous if it were not so diabolically serious that Iran accused Canadians it has targeted for sanctions of "facilitating and supporting terrorist acts". Threatening the seizure of the property in Iran of the eight Canadians sanctioned; of which there are precisely none.

 

Nor may they make use of Iran's banking system, or travel to the country. They are, needless to say, horribly disappointed. The people of Iran, out on the streets protesting courageously braving the assaults from the basij paramilitary and the riot squads and other policing agencies have seen expatriate Iranians living abroad coming out in droves to protest before Iranian embassies in foreign cities. They have seen people not of Iranian origin worldwide express solidarity with their struggle and protesting on their behalf to reawaken the world's conscience. 

 

What they need, desperately, to see is the regime of the Ayatollahs and the IRGC falter and fall. Leaving the population to recover its dignity and its hope for the future. A population that will be free to choose for itself whether it will remain a theocracy, whether it will continue to foment violence and terrorism at home and abroad, or will relax the restrictions imposed on them to be victims bound to a theological ideology that has been corrupted and anti-human in its sweep of human rights violations.

 

Soccer Football - FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 - Group B - England v Iran - Khalifa International Stadium, Doha, Qatar - November 21, 2022 Iran players line up before the match REUTERS/Hannah Mckay

 

 

 

Iran on Fire With the Passion of Liberation

Billboard featuring Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei torched in southern Iran, November 14, 2022  (photo credit: 1500tasvir)

"The report is a lie."

"[The] doors of the house of the late founder of the great revolution are open to the public."

Tasnim news agency

 

"The counter-revolutionary media tries to create turmoil by spreading lies and false information."

"The burning down of Imam Khomeini’s historic house, a place with spiritual value to Iranians, was one of those lies."

Deputy Governor, Markazi province, Behnam Nazari

 

“Hear it from me myself on how the shooting happened, so they can’t say it was by terrorists because they’re lying."

“Maybe they thought we wanted to shoot or something and they peppered the car with bullets … plainclothes forces shot my child. That is it."

Mother of ten-year-old Kian Pirfalak, city of Izeh

Video shows protesters walking by and chanting as the ancestral home of late Islamic republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini is seen on fire.

Little might the Iranian morality police in Tehran imagine what their actions in arresting a young Kurdish woman in violation of the state's dress code for women would ignite. Maha Amini's interrogation and death propelled the murder of an innocent  young woman into the catalyst for an uprising that all the Ayatollahs' fearsome police and military cannot extinguish. The people have risen and their courage has been aroused in defence of human dignity and freedom.

Months of rioting in every city of Iran, that had first surfaced in Kurdish Iran, continue to protest against the theocratic reign of the Ayatollahs and the tyranny extended by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, aided by their Basij paramilitary enforcers. Thousands of protesters have been arrested, and a number have been sentenced to death for crimes against the state. Now, the ancestral home of the venerated late founder of the Iranian Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini has been symbolically destroyed.

The Iranian population, in particular the minority groups, are determined to topple the Islamic Republic of Iran. Activists who have been organizing protests in defiance of the threat of imprisonment and even death, whose goal is to overturn the regime, reported that protesters set fire to the former Khomeini home, now a museum. People cheered as a flash of fire sparked the building in Khomein, south of Tehran.

Under intense pressure from nationwide protests demanding an end to clerical rule since September, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called upon his military to put down the riots by all means necessary. Tear gas and live bullets are in use in response to the protests gripping the nation.  Human rights groups maintain that 326 Iranian protesters have met their death at the hands of police.

Protesters continue to defy Iran's regime, taking to the country's streets on Tuesday to mark three years since another deadly crackdown on unrest. Kaveh Shahrooz, a human rights activist, lawyer and senior fellow at the MacDonald Laurier Institute says the government's efforts to 'scare' the protesters are failing

Videos posted by 1500 Tasvir show marchers in cities in Sistan Bainchistan province where protesters chanted "Death to Khamenei" in the capital Zahedan, and demonstrators in Chabahar removing and trampling an avenue sign named after Ayatollah Khomeini. A funeral ceremony was held for seven people killed in the city of Izeh in the nation's southwest by what the regime called terrorist acts. The mother of 10-year-old Kian Pirfalak was heard naming security forces for her son's death. 

Tasnim news agency reported demonstrations by pro-government forces in the city of Mashhad where two members of the Basij military were killed days earlier. Riot police confronted a crowd at the funeral of Aylar Haghi, a medical student killed by security forces surfaced on video. According to authorities she died after falling into a a construction site excavation.

In the Kurdish-populated northwest demonstrators occupied a police station in a Friday continuation of protests. Iranian authorities say many members of the security forces have been killed by “rioters and thugs backed by foreign foes“. According to state television, 41 had died, including members of the security forces.

Fire and smoke are seen at Fuladshahr, Isfahan province, Iran in this still image from a social media video released on Friday and obtained by Reuters (Reuters)

Doha, Qatar and The World Cup of Soccer

Fans watch a drone display and fireworks over Doha on Saturday. (Jon Gambrell/The Associated Press)

 

"Today I have strong feelings. Today I feel Qatari, I feel Arab, I feel African, I feel gay, I feel disabled, I feel a migrant worker."

"We have been taught many lessons from Europeans and the Western world. I am European. For what we have been doing for 3,000 years around the world, we should be apologizing for the next 3,000 years before giving moral lessons. If Europe really care[s] about the destiny of these people, they can create legal channels - like Qatar did - where a number of these workers can come to Europe to work. Give them some future, some hope."

"[I have] difficulties understanding the criticism [around the treatment and deaths of migrant workers]. We have to invest in helping these people, in education and to give them a better future and more hope. We should all educate ourselves. Many things are not perfect but reform and change takes time."

"This one-sided moral lesson is just hypocrisy. I wonder why no-one recognizes the progress made here since 2016. It is not easy to take the critics of a decision that was made 12 years ago. Qatar is ready. It will be the best World Cup ever."

"[While I am not] Qatari, Arab, African, gay, disabled or a migrant worker, [I am] like them because I know what it means to be discriminated and bullied as a foreigner in a foreign country.     [I was bullied as a child for my] red hair and freckles."

FIFA president Gianni Infantino

FIFA President, Gianni Infantino speaks during a press conference ahead of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 tournament on Nov. 19, 2022 in Doha, Qatar. (Photo by Maryam Majd ATPImages/Getty images)

Oh no, the poor man, bullied as a child. A trauma that has informed his life ever since. The world is a cruel and hostile place for children with red hair and freckles. According to a report from the Guardian, to place matters in a vestige of perspective, during construction over the past ten years in preparation for the tournament, 6,500 foreign workers who laboured to build the sites died on the job. For years there have been reports of the misery of foreign workers in Qatar, people who streamed to the oil-rich country to be able to work and send money back home. 

These were the poor, anxious to find employment where there was none for them in their native Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and the Philippines. Once in Qatar there was no agency to ensure their welfare, to make certain they had decent places to stay, were paid for their work, were not overworked or placed in danger, had access to medical care. Qatar's population is all of three million people, a tiny and wealthy country, out to show the world what it was capable of producing. It spent a whopping $200 billion to build the infrastructure needed to host the games. Fair pay for construction workers and attention to human rights was not one of their concerns.

And FIFA has declared it is not  up to them to dictate to an independent nation how its labour laws should be conducted, and that the nation's rulers needed a conscience in dealing with foreign workers obviously considered dispensable. FIFA was busy with other distractions like the practicality of selecting a desert country to run games that require athletes to extend themselves beyond normal physical endurance in the energy-depleting heat of a Middle East summer. A breezy assurance from Qatar that the usual June-July event would be fine, no one would suffer from heat, did the trick, evidently.

Until second thoughts moved the timing to the winter season when Qatar would only be hot, not sizzling. The soccer leagues might not have been thrilled, forced to tight schedules and coping with the injuries that ensued. But the decision was made and on it went. In a country where adherence to Islamic codes of conduct prevail, homosexuality is illegal and scantily dressed females are unwelcome, the royal family decided that alcohol in any shape or form would, at the last minute, be forbidden. Was that a gigantic universal groan resounding across the world?

There have been some silent rebukes. Denmark has muted the national crest on its team jerseys. A video was released of the Australian team with players criticizing construction worker treatment, offering support as well for LGBT rights. Captains of several nations will be wearing rainbow armbands. A rainbow version of the U.S. team crest was painted on its training facility. Qatar is on record as having stated it was prepared to accept Western norms. Alcohol consumption at games is a Western norm. Will female fans who bare their arms in the heat be confronted by morality police? 

There are (surely malicious, erroneous, embarrassing) reports that Qatar organizers paid for hundreds of worldwide fans to attend the tournament, and while there exuberantly praise the games, the extravaganza put on by Qatar, and above all the wonderful venue Qatar built to brand itself the temporary sport capital of the world.

 

Police stand by on horseback as other security officials try to control a crowd at a FIFA fan zone on Saturday. (Srdjan Nedeljkovic/The Associated Press)

"History will not judge this moment kindly. Infantino’s speech was an insult to the thousands of hard-working women and men who have made the World Cup possible."

"He had a perfect opportunity to acknowledge that thousands of women and men from the poorest countries came to the richest only to face deception, exploitation and discrimination."

"Every day workers are contacting Equidem about unpaid wages, abuse and being terrified about speaking out for fear of retaliation from employers."

Mustafa Qadri, chief executive, international human rights organization Equidem

A large crowd is seen at the FIFA fan zone at Doha's Al Bidda Park on Saturday. (Molly Darlington/Reuters)