Tonight on 24 The 11th Friday of protesting in Zahedan Men and women of Zahedan in another Friday protest chanted slogans against The policies of elimination and suppression in the Islamic Republic We are not afraid of your guns, we are not afraid of anything the 40th mourning day and birthday of the killed young men and women The body of Donya Farhadi, a student who had been missing for 8 days, was buried Fake and extremely unfair trials, says Amnesty International At least 26 arrested protesters are facing execution And the France 24 report about the process of protests in Iran The lack of traditional leadership is both a weakness and a strength of protest From Washington DC this is 24 with Fardad Farahzad Greetings Protesters in Zahedan and a number of other cities such as Rusk after the Friday prayer went to the streets and chanted slogans against the Islamic Republic This is the 11th protest Friday in Zahedaneh, a city that despite 128 citizens being killed,Protests have continued there until today 16 December 2022 I will kill the one who killed my brother This nation wants freedom, it wants a settled country Death to Khamenei, death to the principle of religious authority Death to Khamenei Zahedan, 16 December murder rape death to this regime If one person is killed, a thousand will support him 16 December, Zahedan In the city of Rask, a number of people in this city in support of The Friday Imam Sunni chanted slogans The son of Molavi Abdul Ghaffar Naqshbandi, previously in connection with the rape of the commander of Police to a Baloch girl in Chabahar was summoned to the clerical court, but during the past few days and after his departure to Mashhad There is no information about his fate Today also coincided with Ali Rozbahani's 40th mourning day Despite the security atmosphere prevailing at his ceremony in Behesht Zahra, his sister cut her hair as a sign of protest and said she will not allow Ali's blood to be trampled We are not afraid of your guns and, we are not afraid of anything It doesn't matter if you live in Tehran, Kurdistan, Khuzestan or Zahedan We are all one, we all want justice If my Chador, which is a memorial to Hazrat Zahra, is now a toll for others for Those who are your killers and oppressors and shed the blood of the children of this country our girls and boys, I take off my Chador Woman life freedom We will continue your way, we will fight and revenge your blood all together We will fight, we will die, we will take back Iran He fell to the ground after he was shot I have nothing to do with the person who shot the first bullet I swear As long as I'm alive, I will never forgive the one who came and saw my child was on the ground but shot him This one unforgivable, don't expect us not to revenge from the person who killed this child We will not forgive If one person is killed, a thousand will support him Today was the birthday of the Farzin Maeroufi, a 22-year-old young man from Mahabad who was killed on the 30 of November by The direct shooting of the agents, they did not allow his family to be bury him in Mahabad And secretly buried him in Tehran, Farzin's father danced on his grave with a birthday cake Also, the birthday ceremony of Alireza Khoshkar Bayati was held at his grave A 30-year-old young man who was directly shot by security officers on Marzdaran Blvd. in a received video We see an anonymous citizen who pays tribute to him by attaching a bouquet of red flowers to his banner Expressing sympathy with the victims of the revolutionary uprising The funeral ceremony of Donya Farhadi, a 21-year-old student from Izeh who was studying architecture at Ahvaz University she went missing 8 days ago and was found in Karoon river The Islamic Republic tried to announce the cause of her death as suicide, but her mother Before this, in an interview, had said that she had no reason to commit suicide and was planning for her birthday since several months ago 16 December, Izeh city Donya Farhadi funeral We also received videos of planting trees in memory of those killed these days Mehdi Nakhl Ahmadi, a journalist and political activist from Turin, is with us Mr. Nakhl Ahmadi, I don't know if you have seen these videos or not Some of them are really shocking and the anger these families feel will not subside so easily, what will the Islamic Republic do, what can it do with this Greetings The problem is that the Islamic Republic basically does not recognize the problem That is, you can see in Ali Khamenei's speech he Divided protesters into two groups , there are those who are deceived Either they are infiltrators or they are those who get emotional coming on the street Those who are infiltrators should be executed Those who become emotional should be punished and arrested And they should be justified like the children they send to the correctional centers, as an example A crime was committed in Sistan and Baluchistan they dismissed one or two of the military commanders Or send a delegation there to appease, what is the outcome of this trip? The outcome of this trip is that they say 15 or 16 people were innocently killed Or if they were injured, they refer them to the Martyr's Foundation and the Mustazafan Foundation The story ends, as if the whole problem of the people was the Bloody Friday of Zahedan and the issue is the number of the dead people, the Islamic Republic does not ask why these people come out? Before that people came out and what happened When it comes to discrimination, where is the root of this discrimination? They don't talk about these at all , you should consider that In the past few moments, there was talk of, for example, assuming that we are going to remove the compulsory hijab We see exactly contrary to what people want Friday imams or officials of the Islamic Republic talk that basically Those who are other than or outside the circle of trust of the regime their demand is not recognized, like that their demand does not exist at all When you are constantly looking for alienation You are constantly looking for the official narrative to be different than the will of the people, the result will be either These alienated people are coming together slowly And there will be a movement or a flood, this very day regarding these executions A number of clerics came and protested, many diplomats, many officials all over the world protested and boycotted the Islamic Republic But what is ultimately the Islamic Republic output?it is They say that yes, there is a small problem, for example, in Zahedan And we came and did the same thing, we consoled, we sent someone to console So what about discrimination, dangerous and very, very stupid policies that for 40 years have brought women to this state and brought the economy to this state What is the output of these policies? You should not talk about them at all. Why? because the representative of Imam Zaman supervised these policies So, basically, these policies should not be discussed or reconsidered What is wrong is in the people and it is clear how to deal with the people suppress and silence them Mr. Nakhl Ahmadi several times in these weeks we talked about Baluchistan In general, we talked about the prominent role they play in these protests how is it ? Is it because of the Friday prayer? Is there a call? Spontaneous? How is it that we see such protests in Balochistan? Basically, nothing has changed, that is, it has been a trend for some time On Fridays, after the Friday prayers, people would come to the streets with the support of Friday imams And they were protesting that there are several issues, first of all, the security environment in Sistan and Baluchistan has been different, the conditions were a little more ready for repression Although with the same phrase that Mr. Molavi Abdul Hamid said The increase in solidarity has caused a number of people in Sistan and Baluchistan to have more security margin But the story of Sistan and Baluchistan is four decades of discrimination and deprivation Four decades of the biggest atrocities that a government could impose on its own citizens It has imposed them on Sistan and Baluchistan Today, in addition to all this, we see, for example, in Sistan and Baluchistan Placards are raised regarding the execution of Mr. Mohsen Shekari
Today we see people protest about the massacre in Kurdistan And they say the slogans, today exactly the same slogans and raise the same issue which are raised by people in Tehran, Mashhad, Kurdistan and Isfahan that this system must go and it doesn't matter if it is Friday or every day The problem is that this is continuous It is not supposed to, for example, with the populist methods of the Islamic Republic Or all the justifications it has used in the past few years to get these people to calm down and send them back home somehow they executed, killed, detained, by the way, see Mr. Molavi Naqshbandi He talks about a violation and confirms it The person who reported will be arrested the criminal ho committed the crime and this violation, just is transferred to another area Journalists have been sent to jail for years The informers are imprisoned and the accused are actually acquitted Well, this policy does not work, this policy is ultimately that Sooner or later, the Islamic Republic must be overthrown And leave the circle of Iran and Iranians Mehdi Nakhl Ahmadi, journalist and political activist from Turin, Italy, thank you Protests in Iran have been accompanied by business and worker strikes Strikes that are usually done every time with calls for several days of strike These days, there are new calls in the virtual space A strike has been decided on the 24, 25 and 26 of December The scale of the strikes that are being held is remarkable. A few days ago, the governor of Lenjan in Isfahan province said that on the 5, 6 and 7 of December Almost 70% of traders and marketers were on strike And for this reason, 29 shops and guilds, according to him had The stimulating role have been sealed Mohammad Mashinchian, senior researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, is here in the studio with us Mr. Mashinchian, how much pressure nationwide strikes do you think Economically puts on the government or There is a political aspect mostly that pressure can be concentrated Greetings It definitely has a political aspect, I believe In general, Iran's economic system, all aspects of the economic system is made through political decisions, we have a name for this because it is always said Iran's economic system is not a free market where people are free to trade It is not an economic system where everything is governmental, it is a combination of these But this particular combination that we have today in Iran If we look at it from the window of history, it is called fascism Fascism, in the system, economic decisions have no economic basis Let me give two or three examples, one of them is about salary You can see that wages have no relation to the economic aspect at all The government makes a political decision that today..or in the case of retirees And their pension is the same, the price system is the same You see that big subsidies are given in fascist regimes to stop the riots and keep the people calm The best example is the price of gasoline that the government has spent a lot of money that it can not afford through subsidies and borrowing through the printing of unbacked money I want to say that there is no relationship between the price of gasoline and the economy, this is completely a political decision When all decisions are made politically, that's when People will gradually realize as today they realized this in Iran They understand that economic decisions do not have an economic basis, they have a political basis So if you want to talk to this government You have to pressure it politically And I think this is one of the best examples But how important do you think is the protests to go to bigger industries like Petrochemical such as iron smelting industries and other industries which are more vital Because many of these businesses which are on strike are small businesses in which the lack of the daily income will disturb their lives, maybe they are pressuring the government as much as they are putting pressure on their own families, how important it is that those in The public sector to join and accompany It is definitely important if we want to talk about the effectiveness of strikes I don't have any doubt that the association of these groups that you mentioned can be very effective and be that breaking and critical point that is usually necessary In order for a wave to be created and significant change to take place, it is necessary for them to join But I must also say that I agree many of those who join the strikes They are suffering and hurting But it has reached a point where they have no other hope It means that even if they don't strike, it is not like that a better future is waiting for them Definitely, next year at this time, they will not be able to rent the place they are renting now About the quality of their well-being and life the same The employees of these groups that you mentioned, some of them still seem to be have security And they have not yet reached the point where they are willing to pay the price, but if they do one day Because sooner or later they say they will come for them Finally, they will come to them, I am sure that the quality of their life Until now, must have had a noticeable change and gone down But maybe they still like to keep that margin of safety But I assure them that if you give The Islamic Republic enough time it will take away your remaining welfare There is a perception for many that the market normally and naturally always looks for its own interests. From an economic point of view, how do you see the market now For public benefit, is ready to close its business and close the shops to accompany a political movement This is true, but I would like to point out two or three points here. I said that first
The Islamic Republic has all the signs of a fascist economic system Because, for example, we have a state economy, the government says I do not allow private property to exist at all The free market also is clear what it is Fascist government systems say there is no private property But ultimately people in society or businesses and enterprises should sacrifice themselves to the system This is what Mussolini openly talked about Hitler spoke openly about it, Hitler said that We reserve for ourselves the full right to interfere in private property for the rule of the Third Reich Mussolini spoke about it even more openly than this I want to say that the marketeers and businessmen understand this Realizing that their assets are not safe in Iran And of course, I also accept that they are willing to Let their short-term interests go because they are thinking about their long-term interests But unlike Mussolini, the Islamic Republic has an open faucet of oil, which still has oil income Also, this is the advantage they had over Mussolini Although it seems that they are copying from his notebook page by page from the army of twenty million, which is exactly copied from Mussolini to the things that I have recently said But unfortunately they have oil and it seems that ... Fortunately, they did not have the insight and wealth to understand this and reach an agreement to increase their oil resources because they closed the budget at the beginning of the year quite noticeably predicting an increase in oil sales and that increase didn't happen, so even though they still have oil It is still not as much as they expected to The pressures seem to be increasing ,if this continues And if the strikes increase with the same speed , I imagine that in The not-so-distant future the situation could be much more difficult than it is, even for the Islamic Republic Thank you, Mohammad Mashinchian, Senior Researcher University of Pittsburgh here in the studio In recent days, Iranians living abroad in different cities In support of nationwide protests against the Islamic Republic and protest to the mass arrests and execution of the arrested protesters started sit-ins A number of Iranians living in Britain sat in for the 10th day in a row on Thursday against Manchester Islamic Center in -7 degree Thursday, December 15, the 10th day of the Manchester Iranian sit-in Liverpool and South Yorkshire opposite Manchester Islamic Office This office is a center affiliated with the Iranian regime in Britain it is one of the branches that is located in the United Kingdom, so we ask Iranians from Newcastle, Birmingham Glasgow, London and Cardiff to sit-in in front of Islamic offices in their own cities where the centers of the Iranian regime are located And in this way we can ask from the British government to close these offices in the UK Protesters living in Australia had their fourth day of sit-in on Friday in front of the Queensland state parliament in Brisbane Similarly, a group of Iranians living in London on Thursday held The fourth day of their sit-in in front of the Amnesty International office by performing no to execution performance And I am Saman Yasin, I am Iran, I am Toomaj, I am Farhad and Farzad A group of Canadian Iranians known as the volunteers of the movement and solidarity of women life freedom started a sit-in and hunger strike on Thursday 15 December in front of the Canadian Parliament In protest of the international community's inaction against what they call the crimes of the Islamic Republic On Saturday, December 26, at 12 noon, will join a protest rally in front of the Canadian Parliament in the city of Ottawa 12 midnight in front of Parliament in Ottawa We will stand up, we will fight, we will take back Iran The group of human rights activists in Iran has announced that the number of people killed in nationwide protests is at least 495. Harana says that at least 68 of the dead who were identified were children under 18 years old.
The number of arrested people was more than 18 thousand and 400 people, and Harana says that the identity of 3882 of them has been identified. According to these statistics, more than 11,000 protest rallies were held across Iran in at least 161 cities, as well as in 144 universities, and at least 637 students were arrested. Amnesty International has announced that at least 26 protestors in Iran are at risk of execution due to false and extremely unfair trials, this organization said that 11 people were sentenced to death and the accusations of 15 others may expose them to death. This organization said that Sahand Noor Mohammadzadeh, Manouchehr Mehman Nawaz, Mohammad Broghni, Mohammad Qabadlou, Saman Yasin, Hamid Qara Hassanlou, Mohammad Mahdi Karmi, Mohammad Hosseini, Hossein Mohammadi, Mahan Sadrat and one other person were sentenced to death. Amnesty International said that Ebrahim Rigi, Farzad Farzin, Farhad Tehzadeh, Karvan Shahi Parvaneh, Hajer Hamidi and Shahram Maarouf Molla are at risk of execution due to their charges.
Also, according to the announcement of this organization, there is a risk of death sentence for Reza Islam Dost, Abolfazl Mehri, Hossein Hajilo, Mohsen Rezazade Qaraqlou, Saeed Shirazi, Akbar Ghafari, Amir Nasir Azadani, Tomaj Salehi, Saleh Mirhashmi and Saeed Yaqoubi. Mahmoud Amiri Moghadam, director of Iran Human Rights Organization, is with us from Oslo, Mr. Amiri Moghadam, considering these international pressures, how much risk do you think there is that the Islamic Republic will execute these people? peace be upon you You see, this risk still exists and is serious, but we know that when the cost of executions or repression increases, the Islamic Republic will be forced to retreat, but if the attention of the international community decreases again, there is a possibility of executions, unfortunately.
Now, I think that in the coming days, especially when the Christmas period begins and parts of Europe and the world community as a whole go on vacation, the possibility that death sentences will be carried out is stronger. And today, in a speech in Norway, we said that during the Christmas period, they should not forget the prisoners sentenced to death in Iran and the people of Iran, and I think that our people abroad can also draw attention to the protesters who They are in danger of issuing or executing the death sentence with these sit-ins Mr. Amir Moghadam, it seems that some of the reason for this increase in death sentences is to create fear and panic among the protestors. How much do you think the government has achieved its wish? That's right, you see, we are not talking about the death sentence as a judicial sentence, these sentences are a continuation of the same indiscriminate killings in the streets, and now they want to intimidate the prisoners by killing them.
Until this moment, these executions have not led to a decrease in protests, and on the other hand, the international reactions have been strong enough to increase the cost for the government, but we still have to be vigilant because this government is the same government that was in the sixties that executed demonstrators and political opponents But our era is now different from the 60s, contrary to what Khamenei said that God this year is the same God of the 60s, that is, he threatened a few months ago, this is not the case, neither are people like this, nor is the world community like this and I don't think he will reach his goal Mr. Amiri Moghadam, even some figures who are more or less close to the government seem to be upset and say that this is not the case and that it cannot be that you so easily issue a Moharebeh to anyone who protests and Because at least you remember the first execution that was not even carried out by the party accused of murder It's exactly the same, it means closing a road and injuring someone, we have people on this list who are accused of fighting just for setting fire to a garbage can, that is, as you said, even those who believe in these laws say that this is Not right even according to their own rules And this shows the desperation of the government, see, blind violence means they will do anything to prevent these protests, because they know that these protests have the potential of a fundamental change, but no laws are enforced, not even their own laws. These courts have no legal basis, the execution of a person 23 days after his arrest, which means that his sentence was approved by the Supreme Court less than 20 days after he was arrested, while we know that there is only a 20-day grace period after the sentence is issued to protest against, all these are a show court and order And they try to enforce their sentences, especially those who are less known, and I really hope that the families will not be deceived by these judges. You see, the judges of the revolutionary courts give false hope to the families that if you are silent, maybe we can do something, maybe we can change your Sentence. But this is not the case, the experience of these years, especially in the current situation, has shown that the less known these people are, the more danger they face.
Thank you, Mahmoud Amiri Moghadam, Director of Iran Human Rights Organization, from Oslo France 24 said that the lack of leadership in Iran's protest movement is both a weakness and a strength of the protestors. According to this news network, the lack of leadership has made it very difficult for the Islamic Republic to suppress the protests. And by helping the flexibility of the movement, it has continued, on the other hand, in the absence of a political alternative, the protests may turn into an attrition struggle. France 24 said that the anger is spreading from one group to another, and the killed protesters become martyrs and symbols for freedom, who fight the fire of protests, and the existence of a political alternative can change the equation. Hossein Ghazian, a sociologist, is with us from Washington, Mr. Ghazian, how much do you agree with the opinion of the France 24 report that the lack of leadership is both a strength and a weakness? It can be like that, but it also depends on the duration of this situation, that is, to a certain extent, this situation may be a disadvantage for a movement while being beneficial.
But from a certain time, when the movement progresses and continues, then the lack of leadership is a stronger weakness than the strengths that this movement can bring, because one of the aspects that may win a movement is the presence of leadership that can give a meaning to the set of those demands and to take over that meaning which means to own that event and therefore the events find a side of negotiation with the political system that stands in front of that event If such a situation is not provided that this flow can be compared to the flow of leadership, then it can completely become its weak point. But Mr. Ghazian, in today's Iranian society, not only Iran, compared to, for example, thirty or forty years ago, is it possible to imagine a space where there will be a figure that everyone or at least the majority can really stand behind.
No, we really live in a decentralized world from the world of social life, so we are decentralizing not only from the world of social life but also from the political world. Therefore, the leadership is distributed and concentrated in one person or a few people in particular and its size and probability have decreased But sooner or later, there will be those who may not be manifested in a specific person, but in a group of people, in a number of people, they will become the center of gravity of the leadership in which many leaders may be involved and have a probably different structure from the past I think you are probably referring to this alliance or coalition that is being talked about a lot these days. In that case, how much do you see this ability and this interest among the known Iranian opposition to really stand together despite all the differences? It's not a question of how well they can communicate with each other, it's a question of whether they have access to or an organic connection with those inside who are making these events happen or not These leaders who are going to form a coalition have not yet shown anything or passed a test to let us know if they have an organic connection with the inside, they have the power to mobilize inside. One of the signs may be that none of them have ever gone to call, maybe because they believed that this call would not get a positive response, so since it has not been tested yet, we don't know what will happen. I'm sorry to interrupt you, I'm sure you heard many times from the well-known figures of the opposition that we can't ask the people what to do while we're outside, those who are inside know better. I don't know how much of it is because of this and how much of it is due to the fear of the political cost that such a call can have, but for whatever reason, I have not seen any of the well-known figures outside the country give a call to the country as you say.
Yes, but please note that this idea that we cannot assign assignments from the outside is a relatively new idea that has grown and prevailed in the last few months. Before this, there were many people who made these calls and sometimes announced them, but of course they were not very successful. I still say that because we don't have a test, we don't know if these leaders in the field on the ground have an organic connection to mobilize people or not. If there is no such power, then this alliance may only have a symbolic aspect, which may be a back-warmer for the movement inside, but it may not have an organic and organizational relationship that provides the possibility of organizing and therefore taking over the event and negotiating party for the political system. to be It is possible that this situation will boil from inside and come out, we still have no idea of such a future Mr. Ghazian, please correct me if I am wrong, based on historical experience and what happened in 57, it seems that a significant part of the Iranian society was so wounded by a leader and standing behind a person that There is a considerable amount of mistrust of everyone That's right, not only that story, we are facing a broad social current of discredit in our society, that is, there is nothing valid left, it's not just people or political people, there is almost nothing valid.
There is no more valid money, nor institutions, nor procedures, nor currents, nor organizations, nor institutions, almost everything has been discredited, including individuals, officials, and political authorities, and in this way, this also extends to the perceived leadership. And in addition, as you said, that failed experience in 57 may make this intensity of judgment more intense and reduce the possibility or the chance that such a leader will emerge. Thank you very much, Hossein Ghazian, sociologist, from Washington The Twitter accounts of several well-known journalists who cover the news of Elon Musk, the owner of this company, have been unexpectedly blocked. CNN Washington Post and New York Times journalists are among the journalists who have been denied access to their Twitter accounts, according to a Twitter spokesperson, the ban was due to sharing Elon Musk's location data. Previously, the owner of the Twitter company said that he would sue the owner of the Twitter account who is tracking his private plane Mehdi Sarmifar, science and technology journalist, is with us from Canada Mr. Sarmifar has created a controversy on Twitter. If you remember, by the way, Mr. Musk said that he will allow all my
opponents, even those who monitor me, to be active on Twitter, but suddenly all those who follow his private jet started And not only them, even the journalists who follow the account that is tracking his private jet have been blocked from writing. Even worse than that, it means that those who coded that journalist's tweets also blocked, that is, the correspondent journalist had only narrated the story, but Twitter also suspended him. On Twitter, they call this incident Ella's instructions, Ms. Ella Erbin, the head of Twitter's privacy policy department, told Voj today that they had come to provide information that an account that was actually using free and Open source on the Internet publishes the location of private jets And this will exposed Elon Musk's family to terror so they suspended them, but Elon Musk came a few hours later and conducted a survey, and 43% of the audience said that he should return them as soon as possible, anyway, we are still waiting. And the account of Drew Harwell, the first person who was a Washington Post reporter, has not yet returned, of course the law allows him to do so, that is, what is said that the First Amendment of the Constitution has nothing to do with this issue, it is the government's duties, Section 230 is related to this area and In section 230, the platform owner is allowed to do this It seems that these events are some of the face-washing that happened on Twitter since Elon Musk came, which shows why we are witnessing Elon Musk's failures in other areas, especially Tesla.
The news that we heard last week that Elon Musk is no longer the richest man on earth has almost halved Tesla's stock, and this shows the lack of focus around Elon Musk, and we heard two or three other good things last week as well. In the case of SpaceX and also implanting a chip in the human brain, which seems to be PR activities to cover up Tesla's failure. Mr. Sarmi Far, now I have not seen many people raise the issue of the first amendment,
in the end, it is a private company and has the right to decide who to allow to operate and who not to, but one of the slogans that Mr. Musk used from the beginning was that I am a supporter of free speech and all my opponents can speak The fact that they are following my private jet, I know, you also know and you mentioned it briefly, is not information that if someone really wants to assassinate him, he can find him through open sources. Yes, and it seems that it was an excuse to put pressure on another issue, which I think was definitely the issue of Tesla, because of the events that we saw in the activities of Elon Musk during the last month.
It mostly caused the company, which is the main part of Elon Musk's capital, to be delayed in its work, it missed almost all deadlines, the cyber truck did not arrive, the trucks that were supposed to handle intercity transportation did not arrive, the loop was delayed. And Tesla's shares have practically halved and this has brought Elon Musk down a lot, it seems that we need to see a bigger media space around Elon Musk, and there it is possible to interpret why this emotional reaction from Elon Musk is contrary to all the promises made in the past has been given And we know that it was from Elon Musk's side, according to what Mrs. Ella Erbin said about him today Thank you, Mehdi Sarmifar, science and technology journalist from Canada The US Department of Commerce has blacklisted a Chinese company for selling facial recognition technology to the Revolutionary Guards, NBC reported that Tian the Technologies, in addition to selling cameras and surveillance equipment and artificial intelligence technology to the Revolutionary Guards It has been cooperating with the Chinese Communist Party to provide facial recognition technologies for years. Republican Senator Marco
Rubio previously asked for an explanation in a letter to the Biden administration about the activities of the Tian the Technology company and the possibility of selling facial recognition technology to identify Iranian protesters. Arash Alaei, my colleague, is with us from Congress with more details About two and a half months ago, Republican Senator Marco Rubio wrote a letter to the Departments of Commerce, Treasury and State Department, asking them to investigate the relationship between Tian the Technology and the IRGC. At that time, Mr. Marco Rubio said in his letter that facial
recognition technologies and artificial intelligence technology that Tian the Technology gives to the IRGC will be used against Iranian protesters to recognize their identity and recognize their faces. About a week or two after Senator Marco Rubio's letter, we saw for the first time that a website called APVM started and wrote about the relationship between Tian the Technology and the IRGC and the government of the Islamic Republic. Then we saw some photos that were spread on Twitter and in other social media about the technologies that Tian the technologies is giving to the Communist Party in order to suppress the Uyghurs in the Sinkian region, to use facial recognition and put them in prison. Even strange technologies such as the smart interrogation room technology that Tian the Technology claims do not need a human to interrogate people and this technology can automatically understand whether someone is being interrogated, whether they are lying or not.
And now NBC has reported that after the US Department of Commerce put Tian the Technology on its blacklist on Thursday, American companies will now need permission from the Department of Commerce if they want to do business with Tian the Technology. Why did this story happen, because most of the Tian the technology chips were produced by the American company Intel, MBC called Intel and asked Intel about this. And Intel has told NBC News that it has conducted an internal investigation and found that its chips are used in high-tech technologies that are used to violate human rights. We know that the Chinese are already using these systems in different ways, they are considering social rankings for their citizens.
One can only imagine how dangerous it is for such a technology to fall into the hands of another authoritarian government like the Islamic Republic And this story is not only limited to the Islamic Republic of Iran, the news we are reading in the rest of the world, as you said, now we see that China is helping dictatorial governments in Africa like Zimbabwe to start using facial recognition technologies and track their citizens Just like you said, they should start a system like the class credit system in their own country, which deprives the citizens if they do something that the government thinks is wrong. They will be deprived of many of their rights, I will just briefly say that even in China itself, as you said, this credit system, if the government lowers the social credit of a person for any reason, if, for example, that person has participated in a demonstration, for example Freedom of Hong Kong And the Chinese Communist government does not like it, by lowering the social credit, that person will be denied from buying a plane ticket, from even buying a train ticket, and he will have to give up many of his social freedoms, because his social credit is controlled by technologies like Tian the Technology companies has come down And I think that unlike Iran, which more or less eventually, the United States can more easily impose sanctions and economic pressures, unlike Iran with China, because it has extensive trade deals, it is much more difficult for the United States. Look, the important issue now is that the economic war between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, which started with the previous Trump administration and has become much more intense in the Biden administration, the main point is that some of these companies that provide and sell technologies to the Revolutionary Guards and Other groups that those groups use against their own citizens, these technologies use American components, not only in the case of facial recognition technologies and Intel chips, but also the software that these companies sometimes use is software that its sourced original code comes from America And it is an effort that the Biden administration is making to identify these companies, at least to cut their hand from American technologies for the time being. Since China itself has limited capabilities for chip manufacturing, it is dependent on the United States, and it is highly dependent on Taiwan, by blocking the way for companies like Tian the Technology, which cannot receive and easily use the chips of technology giants like Intel. It is possible that these companies take a few steps back in technology and lose their competitive power in the world Thank you, Arash Alaei, my colleague, from inside the US Congress And thank you for accompanying us on this 24th, we will end the program with images outside the same building where Arash was, the Capitol Building, the US Congress.
2022-12-21