The Chris Cuomo Project - CUOMO Exchanges: Iran Uprising

Episode Date: January 8, 2023

In a bonus compilation from NewsNation’s “CUOMO,” Chris Cuomo highlights recent interviews and ongoing coverage of the anti-government uprising in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm Chris Cuomo, and welcome to a special episode of The Chris Cuomo Project. Now, back in September, we heard the name Masa Amini, young woman, wasn't dressed the way the morality police, the authorities in Iran wanted her to be. There was an argument. She was taken away. She died. Now, more specifically, it is believed she was killed. Now, sometimes a death, even if it's not unusual, and people dying for bad reason in Iran at the hands of a despotic, religious, extremist power base, which is very different from the people of Iran. Don't throw them all in the same bucket. It's not unusual.

But sometimes one death is one too many. And Amini's death, young, 22, I think, wound up setting a fire under other young women and men. And now it's spreading through the population in Iran and the protests have been coming. And now showing who they really are, the people are out on the streets giving their blood for freedom

and showing who they really are, okay? The Islamist Republic there, which is really just a despotic, religious extremist agency, is showing its true colors by killing those who protest. They say crimes against God or whatever they call it. The irony that in the name of God, they kill people who have done nothing wrong, but fight for their freedom. And it keeps happening. And it's time for you to get caught up if you haven't been paying attention. And I got an easy

way to do it. I've been covering this regularly and we're going to string together different interviews that kind of take you through how this has been evolving and what the concerns are and what we've been hearing from advocates and people on the ground and we'll clip them all together and you can watch it in one big group or listen in one big group and you'll be caught up to speed of where my coverage is, and then we can move forward together. Please subscribe. Please follow. We will be doing coverage of Iran until the end. Here you go. We don't fake the funk here, and here's the real talk. Over 40 years of age, 52% of us experience some kind of ED between the ages of 40 and 70.

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consultation with a healthcare provider, and they will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply. You see the website, you'll get details and important safety information. You're going to need a subscription. It's required. Plus, the price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. The Chris Cuomo Project is supported by Cozy Earth. Why? Because I like their sheets. That's why. A lot of people don't get a good night's sleep for a lot of reasons. One of the ones that you can control is bedding. One out of three of us report being sleep deprived. Okay, well, what is it? Well, it stresses all kinds of things, but the wrong sheets can make you hot, can make you cold. I'm telling you, I don't even believe it either, but Cozy Earth sheets breathe.

And here's what I love about them. Cozy Earth's best-selling sheep is a bamboo set, okay? Temperature regulating. Gets softer with every wash. I'm not kidding you, all right? Now, so if you go to CozyEarth.com and you enter the code, enter the code CHRIS, and you can get up to 35% off your first order. CozyEarth.com, and the code is CHRIS. I feel very, very good to be telling you about this because we should be living this reality. Violent protests continue for weeks now after the death of the woman you're watching on your screen,

22-year-old Masa Amini. She was in custody of the country's morality police. And then this happened. Women and girls started taking to the streets, shedding their hishabs in solidarity with Amini, arrested for wearing hers incorrectly, like she was like showing a little bit of some part of her body. At least 150 have been reported dead. And again, who knows about that number, because you're not going to get the correct numbers from the state, that's for sure. Protesters are calling it a revolution against the oppressive Islamist regime. Now, some of you have come at me saying, hey, that's Iran's business. And, you know, we've done enough

for Ukraine, too. You know, we got to stay out of other people's problems. We have enough to deal with at home. I am in no hurry to leave my family again and spend time on foreign soil watching people die for like the 10th time. But the idea that what happens there doesn't matter to us here at home is wrong. Okay. Now, about what's happening there and what it means. Iranian-born TikTok activist Yeganeh Mafar is using the social platform to do what social media should do, which is to spread the word. It is very good to have her listen to this. The internet is going to be cut off in Iran. They've already lost access to Instagram. For those unaware, this woman was unalive due to the mandatory hijab laws in Iran.

That event caused mass protests. Iran needs your help in sharing this message. Why should people care here? I think the things that are happening now can reflect anywhere. If you care about feminist values, if you care about human lives, this is something that everyone in the world should care about. Now, we also have with us Morgan Ortegas, who's been outspoken on this issue, former State Department spokesperson, believes it matters here. It's good to see you, my friend. To the Americans who are saying, look, we care, this is terrible, but we have our own problems. Why should Americans be concerned from a policy and American interest perspective about what happens in Iran?

So Americans should care because this is gender apartheid basically happening in Iran. There's 42 million women that can't do simple things like show their hair every day. And when you look at the Middle East and the Trump administration, which I served, and I served in the Obama administration as well, we handed four peace deals between Israel and Arab states to the Biden administration. The way we were able to do that is because we united them essentially over a common enemy in the Islamic Republic of Iran that oppresses its people, as you see. And that's one of the reasons why we focused on a maximum economic pressure campaign that would starve these oppressors, that would starve the regime of the ability to do what the IRGC

contours is doing this year, which is buying more and more safe houses and which is empowering the very thugs and the people that you see on the screen. So I think it's incredibly important for America to stand up for human rights. Tony Blinken said in his Senate confirmation that he was going to stand up and lead his foreign policy with human rights. We haven't seen that in the case of Iran. They have recently put sanctions on the so-called morality step. Police, it's a good step, but it's not nearly enough. Quick follow for you, Morgan. What is your greatest concern if America does nothing?

If America does nothing, you'll just continue to see these women that will literally die over their hair. They're going to die over peacefully protesting. And what's more is you're going to see this regime right now, because U.S. sanctions are not being enforced, the Chinese and others are buying oil from Iran. Their foreign currency reserves are up to probably 41 billion this year. It was down to 4 billion in 2019 during the pressure campaign. So essentially what's happening is this regime has the money, they have the lifeblood to be able to harass these women, to harass anyone peacefully protesting, and they will more importantly take that money

and continue to fund terrorism around the region. Well, you may not know, Al-Qaeda senior leadership, safe harbor in Iran right now as we speak. Yegoni, when you're talking to young people here and they say, okay, I feel the pain that's going on there. What can we do? What do you want? Sure. I think she made a wonderful point about sanctions. I would have disagreed with them prior to what's going on right now.

I don't think blanket sanctions help a country. I think rather than taking money away from a regime, it takes money away from innocent people, and I can give that experience from my family's experience. It's not that you're taking money away from morality police. Sometimes it's you're just taking money away from starving people. But I agree right now, what we have to do is push for this nuclear deal not to happen. We have to push for talks between Biden and the regime not to happen. If you asked me a month ago, I would have said something completely different. But right now, we have to advocate for speaking for the women there and speaking for the protesters. So my

opinion on it has changed a lot with time that has gone by. And for people here, what do you want to see? Do you think this should become like a social media energy where, by the way, it's happening in that I thread, I didn't need it. You know, I'm going to be a natural ally about this because I believe that's a part of this job is to care about these situations. But I got a lot of people coming. Should they be doing that to their lawmakers and say, care about this? Yeah, I mean, you can find resources to talk to your lawmakers, but it's unfortunate that we can't do what we did with Ukraine and give money or put it in a GoFundMe and help these people in real time. But the biggest thing you can do is share the story and not let it become one of those things that you hear about for two days and then you're like, what happened with that?

No one continued talking about it. This has to continually be updated. And Iran's had protests before. And one of the biggest things is they can suppress the media, but they can't suppress us here. So by you talking about it, it's amazing.

And I think as Americans, sometimes we get scared that we're going to say the wrong things and we should let the people speak. We should let them and just amplify their voices. But honestly,

from any Iranian person I've spoken to from Iran, they've said, I don't care anyone. If you're a white woman, a black woman, anyone, just talk. Like, no one's going to get in trouble. Yeganeh, thank you very much. Moj Madera joins me right now.

She's the founding member of the Iranian Diaspora Collective. Moj, thank you. Thanks for having me. No, I need you. Because this is literally crazed behavior by any kind of sovereign. It is. Help the audience understand exactly what this dynamic is about and where you believe it's headed.

Well, I think the first thing to sort of note is that there is a distinct difference between the Islamic Republic and Iran. And the Iranian people are begging for the Western world and the rest of the world to understand that there is the Iranian people, the Iranian culture, and then there is the terrorist group called the Islamic Republic. And they are not one and the same. In fact, they are in complete opposition. Over the past two months, the Islamic Republic has systematically arrested close to, I think it's, we can't get real facts. Is it 14,000? Is it 15,000 people? They're not just in prison. They're being tortured. They're being beaten. Juveniles, people who are gay, people who are of different ethnicities, different religions, they're being tortured. And when we're talking about torture, we're not talking about waterboarding or we're not talking about extreme levels of torture, dislocated shoulders, broken legs, dislocated jaws.

We're hearing horror stories of young women being murdered and killed with their organs being cut out of them. I mean, this is horrendous. It's a horror. I don't think anyone in the diaspora can actually sleep. For myself, I'm not an activist. I'm a venture capitalist. But this has become a full-time commitment for myself and my colleagues in the diaspora. Why? And what do you mean when you explain to people what you mean by the diaspora?

What I mean by the diaspora, myself, people like myself were first generation, or perhaps they were born in Iran, but they were raised here, and whether it's in Europe or Canada. And a group of us, about 90 of us, got together and created this new group called the Iranian Diaspora Collective. And what's been amazing about this collective is that all of us are leaders within entertainment and media and social media and tech and fashion. And we've realized that we have the power to sort of influence folks like you, that we can find our way into media to get coverage because this revolution has been happening on the internet, on social, on TikTok, because it's been very hard for

the West to get sources on the ground, because reporters need sources on the ground. Say, there's fires in Avine, or there are women being raped, as you just mentioned. Reporters need to be on the ground. Correct. We need reporters. They're not allowing us in right now. Well, reporters are on the ground, but they are arrested, and they are in Avine prison, being tortured. You have all kinds of discussions right now around the amount of journalists who are currently in jail right now, and they're being tortured for reporting. I'm saying the traditional setup of I'm doing my show from there and talking about what's happening and state is bringing people on to make their case and you test it against what you know.

That's not happening. That's not happening. happening. That's not happening. So now we had this interesting development where you did get leaders here, the Canadian prime minister and others saying, hey, look what's happening with these protesters. This is really bad. Canada denounces the Iranian regime's barbaric decision to impose the death penalty on nearly 15,000 protesters. And why I say no due process, it was like voted on in a governmental body, but it certainly wasn't a function of any kind of administration of justice, no trial. The tweet was up for 12 hours. They then took it down. Ian Bremmer, obviously a big international

expert, tweeted, it's been brought to my attention that a post I shared yesterday about capital punishment in Iran for 14,000 protesters is unverifiable and likely untrue. So I decided to take the post down and ensure it doesn't get any additional attention. What do you make of that? Look, I think the parliament made a pronouncement that they have the ability to execute these 15 plus thousand people who've been arrested during these protests. That means they have the right. Another reason we need our elected leaders focused on more than trying to destroy each other through investigations is Iran. It demands their focus. Kids are being killed.

Young and old are striking and protesting and being brutalized. You know, here's an analogy. Remember ISIS and how much we cared when they were doing the same things? Remember how rabid, how pernicious, how evil we thought that was and why we had to do anything we could? Imagine ISIS as a country, and that is Iran. The place is in the throes of what could be all-out civil war. And the result will have a direct impact on whether there is a near nuclear power with real reason to be a friend or a foe. Now, I want to talk about the latest and the implications with people who are watching and worrying. With us now is Tara Grammy, an actress and Iranian freedom activist, and Moj Madira, co-founder of the Iranian Diaspora Collective. I told you I had you back, Moj. Both want democracy.

Thank you for having me back. through the military. Thanks to both of you. Moj, let me start with you. Yasmeen, thanks. It's great to have you. The idea of who I had on the other night, Moj. So I have a man on the other night who had tried to run for president there, and he was saying that he was sympathetic toward the protesters' cause, but he was very open to the idea that the military could come in here, and maybe that was the necessary way to get out the theocracy. There was a lot of contempt for that idea. Explain why. Well, thanks for having us back. I'm really excited to be here with Tara. Look, the Islamic Republic are pros at propaganda. That, unfortunately, is a bit of their propaganda that they've been using over the past few decades to scare the Iranian people so that they are

continually afraid of a sort of military intervention from the West, which we know is simply not going to happen. The West has said it. There is not going to be a military intervention. But what is going to happen is sanctions. What is going to happen is closing their embassies. What is going to happen is revoking their visas, closing their bank accounts, canceling the visas of their children. What is going to happen is we're going to hold the Islamic Republic accountable. We are going to alienate them on a public stage, and they are going to feel the pain of this alienation. So this rhetoric and this propaganda that they've been running for the past 40 years is not going to work. It's ineffective,

and it will not be successful. This regime's time is done. It's limited. Their time is up. Tara, you say that in all the years that you've been watching what's happening there, you believe this time is different, that you see a galvanizing that is novel. How so? I think people aren't scared anymore. What Iran, I mean, the Islamic Republic, which is very different from the Iranian people in Iran, has used to control the people of Iran is fear. And after 43 years of violence and brutality and human rights violations, I think the people just, they're not scared anymore. And that's why it's very different this time. And the fact that women are at the helm of it.

The fact that they're killing, they killed a 10-year-old child yesterday. People are angry and people just aren't scared anymore. But where does that go? I understand that and you're going to have to be brave because you're going to bleed in this situation because you're up against a very violent and oppressive body. Doesn't this get a lot worse before it has a chance to get better? I do think it unfortunately gets worse before it gets better.

But I think as the countries around the world galvanize in support of the Iranian people and Iranian women and call this a revolution versus a protest, I think on Thursday something very important is happening. The UN is holding a special session to expel Iran from the Women's Commission. We need 47 member states to essentially vote yes so that we can activate the mechanism for this investigation. And I think, you know, we pray that it does not get worse. We hope. We are praying every day. But I think the Iranian people are saying to us, we are going to go through with this revolution. We are here. And they are calling upon every human being, politician, world, every sort of country that stands for freedom, stands for humanitarian rights to stand up and align themselves in spirit and soul financially with rights to align ourselves with these people who are willing to die. They are dying on the streets every day. You see young girls roller

skating and on bikes, you know, hair blowing, you know, riding their bikes. And these guys are demanding. I think they're going to push for freedom. I think we need to join in solidarity with them. And we pray that there is not more bloodshed. But we know the Islamic Republic is ruthless, and we've seen it before. And I think that they will continue to become more aggressive with the Iranian people. Sanctions is always a popular answer with the U.S. government. Moj, you had an interesting point about sanctions that very often they sound good, but they affect the wrong people. How so? What has been done in Iran so far and what should change? You know, we spend a lot of time internally talking about how these sanctions have hurt everyday people. I think that's why you're seeing workers strike right now.

I think that's why you're seeing doctors, teachers strike right now. Look, the Islamic Republic is holding the Iranian people hostage. They held Americans hostage for 444 days. And that pain and suffering that American public went through, that is how every Iranian on the outside is feeling through watching their country being held hostage by the Islamic Republic that's ruthless. And it is absolutely time for them to go. Tara, when you're speaking to Americans who have a bad case of compassion fatigue, right? I mean, even Ukraine, everybody had their blue and yellow flags. Now, not so much. It's hard to get

attention there. When they say, look, we know it's terrible, but there are a lot of terrible places and things happening in the world, and we're giving them money, we're trying to help, but we got to worry about ourselves at home. What do you say? I say that this is a country that has no internet connection right now. We have to be the voices of these people. There's just no other option. I understand the compassion fatigue, but I just ask people to dig down deep into their humanity

and look at the pictures of the children that are being killed every day and try to find it in their hearts to at least post about it, at least post about it on their social media. That's the smallest thing anyone can do just to get the word out about what's happening in Iran. Because putting that pressure on the government by making this a huge news story can really make a change there. So that's what I try to touch

in Americans, but it's hard. You hear about this one? Iran is calling for the U.S. to be disqualified from the World Cup for briefly altering their flag on social media in support of the protesters in Iran. Religious zealots. They never get the irony of them demanding decency. But there could be a much bigger victory for America and for freedom in play. Let's bring in Ari Aramesh, who was born in Iran and is a lawyer and national security consultant. Thank you very much for joining us. Good to be with you and congratulations on the new show. And Chris, did I love that monologue right before you spoke to Congressman Eric Swalwell of East Bay. Oh, thank you very much. Appreciate it. So let's get to why this matters. Do you believe there is a real chance for change taking place in Iran right now?

Undoubtedly. As you mentioned earlier in your monologue, and I would say if in January of 2022 you asked any observers, no one would tell you that, yeah, Moscow, Beijing and Tehran, our three biggest adversaries, would be in the trouble, in the biggest troubles of their sort of last 10, 15 years of the regimes. No one would have guessed that. You see that Putin's army is bogged down in Ukraine and on retreat. You see Beijing is now dealing with massive uprisings and backlash to repression. And you see the brave, young, old, middle-aged women, girls, boys, and men of Iran taking it to the streets, demanding basic freedoms, basic rights. And bottom line is this, they know this regime is very hard to reform or it's impossible to reform. They want to get rid of it and start all over. So do I think there's a chance there is, but there needs to be international support and not just international,

this is not a charity. I think international support to do something good in that region, as you just said, every time we try to do good, the Islamic Republic of Iran interferes and tries to reverse that, do some bad. It's in our national interest, a long-term national security interest, to make sure that there is a regime in Tehran that treats its people with dignity, with respect,

and it's the derivative of the ballot box, not the directive of an ayatollah, not the directive of a council of elders, as they call the guardian council and the assembly of experts, which is a conglomerate of, you know, a geriatric Ayatollah. So, yes, do I think there's an opportunity? Absolutely. And am I proud to see young girls, young women fighting and standing up against bullets with nothing but their scarves? Oh, boy, am I. And they're male allies. Men have to step up.

Absolutely. You know, one of the... Absolutely. You know, and it's in every culture, but it's very pronounced in Islamic culture. Men always talk about how important women are and how sacred they are. And this is the time to stand up. You know, it's a secular issue because democracy and freedom doesn't have to be a function of faith. But one of the things that I'm trying to figure out in terms of how to connect to U.S. interests, I keep hearing from people, hey, if America wants to help, rethink the sanctions because the sanctions that America puts in place and others put in place wind up hurting the protesters more than the people in power. Is that true? And if so, what is the fix? I'll answer that question real quick,

but let me back up and add to something you said, which is women and their male allies. If my beloved Dodgers or my beloved Rams tomorrow decided not to allow African-Americans, women, Italian-Americans, or Jews into their games, what do you think would happen, Chris? None of us would go to that game. We'll all boycott my beloved Dodgers and Rams. When women are not allowed in stadiums under such discrimination, I think even men should step up their games and say, you know what? Soccer isn't worth it. We're not going to go to the games.

We're not going to go to stadiums. We're not going to go watch wrestling matches as long as our sisters, mothers, daughters, and our aunts and our wives and our girls, you know, are not allowed to have participate in the same activities as us. So I think that's something to keep in mind. Now, again, somebody would say, oh boy, you know, there was this, you know, segregation 70, 50, 60 years ago. Yes, I get that. But we live in 2022 now. If tomorrow, if somebody did that here in LA or in New York or in Chicago, the reaction would be very different from society as a whole. That's one thing. Going forward, talking about sanctions, you have certain tools with which you can punish a rogue regime.

You would try to bring them to the negotiating table. President Obama did that, tried very hard, sanctioned the regime and brought them to the negotiating table in 2015, got a nuclear deal. Trump got out of it, but again, it added more sanctions to that. But again, sanctions, it's a double-edged sword. Part of it is for punishing the rogue regime, but the other part is to create a reverse incentive for them to come to the negotiating table. Now, you have a regime called the Islamic Republic of Iran that is born,

and it's created based on anti-Americanism and anti-Israeli sentiments. It's a fundamentalist regime that spews to spread fundamentalist version and reading of Islam, but on top of that, support what it calls resistance movements in the region, which is sort of a revolutionary rhetoric. So when we talk about sanctions, that's pretty much short of military strikes because they're not going to deal. They don't play ball. And clearly, military options should be the absolute, absolute last resort. What do you have in between?

In the middle, you don't have a whole lot of options. So you have to make it tougher on the regime. And of course, some people are going to get hurt. And of course, some middle class and some, you know, the people in the lower class are going to hurt. But again, we have to make it much tougher for the regime to have access to financial means, to weapons, to tools, restricted travels. But a lot of good targeted sanctions are doable, what we can do, which we haven't done yet. And again, there are options there. It's not that it's not the end of the world.

But again, I applaud President Biden and this administration for having changed their track and their course from direct or indirect negotiations on the nuclear deal that was not going anywhere, unfortunately, to, you know what, as long as the Iranian regime is killing people on the streets, we're going to stand up and we're going to help the Iranian people. And that's a good thing. Look, no shame in my game. I've been using AG1 for over five years. Why? It works, it's easier, and it's less expensive. That's why.

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It's required. Plus, the price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. Now, we come back to hit on a story that you've got to keep front of mind. It's going to matter to us. It should matter now. It definitely will in the future. What's happening in Iran. The protests are not stopping. It doesn't matter the blood.

It doesn't matter the oppression and suppression. For months, they're still going, and it is growing. Now, the country's attorney general says, oh, we may abolish the morality police. By the way, that's not true, okay? The attorney general doesn't even control the morality of peace, all right? State media is denying the claim. Critics say it amounts a little more than propaganda to subdue the ongoing unrest. I see it a different way, okay? And I want to talk about this with Ari Aramesh, okay? He's an Iranian-born attorney and national security consultant.

Ari, here's what I think is going on. And a little bit, you're going to say, yeah, no kidding. I told you this last time. is going on. And a little bit, you're going to say, yeah, no kidding. I told you this last time. I think this is the theocracy. This is the power structure trying to get people outside Iran to care about the problems less by pretending there's progress. I've seen them do this before. So have you. The attorney general doesn't control the morality police, and there's no reason to believe that women will be allowed to dress the way they want, no matter who's policing it, right? You know, I'm a California native, but I call that New York common sense, and that is

exactly picking it up. I lived in New York a couple years. That is just seeing through the problem right there and calling it, just like President Biden would say, that's malarkey. through the problem right there and calling it just like President Biden would say. That's malarkey. The morality police, which is part of the national police, so you have the police force, and each police force has its own city or sort of, let's say, a metropolitan division, but they all follow one brigadier general. That's the head of the entire country's police force.

He, and it's always an E, is appointed directly by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He's the supreme leader and commander-in-chief of all Iranian armed forces. Now, the morality police, which is a sort of, let's say, religious pseudo-ideological wing of the police, is in charge of cracking down on people who may misbehave according to their interpretation of Islamic law, even if they say that the morality police is going to go away. You know, Chris, the Islamic Republic of Iran is founded on a few principles. If we were to dissect its DNA, one of it is anti-American rhetoric. One is supporting pretty much every troublemaker in the world and those in the region. But another part of it is controlling women. It's that sort of misogynistic ideology, that radical Islamist ideology that says,

without your husband's permission, you can't work. Without your husband's permission, you can't get a passport. Oh, you want custody of your kids? No, you can't. And that is something that they give up. They might as well give up the whole thing. Now, so what do I mean by that? They may change its name.

We don't change it from morality police to the virtuoso or police for chaste chastity, something like that. But if they give up control and they give up their order as sort of the repression of women, well, for that matter, we can say regime change has happened. So I'm saying that is synonymous with regime change. If they did that, they might as well call it something else. So there is nothing that leads to progress, in your opinion, except regime change. How does that happen short of just outright, you know, bloody revolution? You know, the regime has had years and years to reform itself.

Came to power in 79, had a glorious, quote-unquote, reformist election in 1997. President Mohammad Khatami came to power. There was a lot of fanfare around him for eight years. Guess who replaces him? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the guy who comes to New York City, goes to the UN, talks about the destruction of Israel, takes the country backwards. Again, you have another election. President Rouhani becomes president. He tries to reach some sort of a nuclear rapprochement, but again, goes back. Guess what? The entire system is based

upon the order and the dictum of one, and that is the supreme leader. When Ayatollah Khomeini was alive, the man behind the hostage crisis and so on and so forth, he called the shots. Now that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is in charge, he called the shots. This regime is not reformable, and I don't think it's going to be necessarily a bloody revolution. to be necessarily a bloody revolution, but what it means is this. The West, the free world, and the people of Iran can do a lot more together to get rid of this regime that is bad for the people of Iran, for our national security interests, for American interests, and for the free world. You're listening and watching 23-year-old Mohsen Shikari. He was part of wanting freedom and wanting a better life in Iran, and he was protesting.

And he paid the ultimate price today for that commitment. He was executed, hanged until dead, and many believe he was the first of what could be more to come. Now, to discuss why that happened, what it means, and what may happen next is Nazanin Noor. She's an actor, an activist, a writer, daughter of Iranian immigrants to the United States. Thank you for responding to me online. I know you're busy, and I want to talk about why. You are here working with others, going to UN, finding every way you can to get meetings with people to influence a vote. What vote and how is it going? Yeah. First of all, thank you for having me and for spotlighting what's happening in Iran so continuously. So I'm with a group of Iranian women. One is a human rights attorney named Ghisunia. And we have put together this letter to kick the Islamic Republic off of the Commission on the Status of Women. Now,

this letter originated within Iran with a female human rights activist who are asking for them to be kicked off because they have no business being on the Commission on the Status of Women, something that's meant to empower women globally, which is, in our vision, a slap in the face to the girls and women of Iran who are being beaten, tortured, a slap in the face to the girls and women of Iran who are being beaten, tortured, and raped in the streets. And so we've been meeting with various member states all throughout the week to present an accurate picture and representation of what life is like for women and girls under the Islamic Republic and to hopefully get member states to vote yes to remove them from the Commission on the Status of Women.

And the vote will be on Wednesday, December 14th. What's the big push against? Why could it be a good idea to keep them from the Commission on the Status of Women, and the vote will be on Wednesday, December 14th. What's the big push against? Why could it be a good idea to keep them on it? We have heard some people say, well, what about keeping them on for engagement purposes so that, you know, maybe there can be some change? But a lot of people don't realize the Islamic Republic was on the Commission of the Status of Women in 2016 as well.

And as we can see, the situation for women has absolutely deteriorated. They have shown no signs of change. And the women and girls and the people of Iran have been very clear and direct in their messaging. They're not looking for small concessions or change. They want an end to the regime. And so we are hoping that this is a step in that direction. One of the remarkable things about the dynamic here is that the people there can't make their voices heard. They can't get on the internet. They can't get out. They won't let media in, really, not American media. So, so many of you who have blood ties and are here and American have taken up the cause. And I think that's a remarkable statement about the strength of the culture. And they say Sha'Carri was killed for waging war against God, corruption on earth. The facts to those hyperbolic statements were that they say, oh, this wasn't just burning something down. He was trying to kill people out there. Do you believe that there is any fact sufficiency to what he did wrong?

What we know is that he was charged with this corruption on earth, war against God, and they use this very arbitrarily against protesters and many other people over the last 43 years. I don't believe that anything they say is actually the truth. This was a sham trial from the moment that he was charged and arrested to his execution was only 75 days. He wasn't allowed due process. allowed due process. And we are sounding the alarm because this is going to continue to happen if the international community does not actually take swift action, put pressure on the Islamic Republic. International community needs to put pressure on the Islamic Republic to halt these executions. Iranians are asking for ambassadors to be recalled, for assets of regime officials to be frozen, to actually put pressure on them to halt because we've been sounding the alarm for the last few weeks. We know that this is going to happen. This is IRI textbook. President Raisi, at 27 years old,

back in 1988, at the end of the Iran-Iraq war, was on the committee of death, which is what it was called. And he oversaw the execution of thousands of political prisoners and dissidents. And there's nothing to show us that that won't happen again. This is exactly what they do when they're cornered, they're scared. They're scared. They're silencing all the voices, artists, journalists, human rights activists, students. They're throwing everybody in jail, sham trials, and they all are at risk of death like rapper Salman Yassin. And you say you know this firsthand because you're in contact with the family of at least one other young somebody there, a rapper, and you believe that he may be targeted for execution as well. Who is it and why do you believe that? His name is Salman Yassin. I am in contact with his family. He's a Kurdish Iranian rapper, and he was also charged with this corruption on earth,

waging war against God. According to his family, he was held at Evin Prison, which is Iran's most notorious prison. He was tortured there. They would torture him, interrogate him for up to eight hours a day. Then he was moved to a prison in the city called Karaj. It's called Raja Yashar. And it's notorious for something called white interrogation. Sensory deprivation. Right. Sensory deprivation.

Exactly. And so what they do is they move them to this specific prison before they're slated to be executed. This is where Mohsen was before he got executed this morning. And so we have every reason to believe that someone is next. There's a 20-year-old young boy named Ali Muazzami who we believe is next because his name has been floated around and circulating as well. There's a list of 40 other people that are at risk of imminent execution. So this is the time for the international community to step up. There's so much perversity with how women are seen under this extreme Islamism law, you know.

Are women as susceptible to execution as men are in this instance? I don't have the statistics on that, but it seems with the list that we've been seeing floating around, the men are being targeted much more. Women are being disappeared. They are being killed in the street like teenagers, Nikosha Kerami, Sarina Esmayizadeh at the at the beginning of this revolution are 15 and 16 years old, respectively. Their bodies are taken from their families. They're not allowed to have proper burials. We know that women are being raped and sexually assaulted.

There's been reports that have come out regarding that. So the women are being brutalized in their own specific way, too. And our men right now are also facing imminent execution. I saw a video. Tell me if I got it wrong. But I saw a video on your Instagram site. And I think you captioned it as, this is what it looks like and sounds like when someone finds out that their son is dead. And there's a woman who comes outside her home and she's just wailing and wailing in the

street. And as painful as that is to see, people can't come to her. You see that there's someone shooting it from another home, but people can't come out her. You know, you see that there's someone shooting it from another home, but people can't come out on the street. They're afraid to embrace her because there are authorities all over the place looking to take people up. That was Mohsen's mom. We know it's a family member. I can't tell if it's a mother or sister, but no parent should bury their child, and especially not under execution. And in fact, the street corner where he was said to? You know, there's this supposition that the military will stay independent on it, but that's a loose guarantee. What do you think the prospect is for the people themselves to be able to create change? I think the people are showing us that they can create change. They're literally asking for the international community

to step in and help. And so I know that change needs to come from within the Iranians community inside of Iran, and we need to listen to what they're asking for. And what is that? Like the people who are watching right now, what can they do? What should they want? They want elected officials, global elected officials to cut ties with the Islamic Republic. They want them to expel their ambassadors. They want them to freeze the accounts of regime officials to do visa bans so they cannot travel freely back and forth

to the States, to Canada, to Europe, like they have been able to do before, to basically corner them and isolate them. Are lawmakers connecting with you guys? What's your sense of who you have as allies? Well, I know that a couple of weeks ago, the same group that I'm here with for the CSW, we were in Geneva, actually,

lobbying for the vote as well for the special session to create a fact-finding mission to hold the Islamic Republic accountable for their human rights abuses and crimes that they've committed since the beginning of this revolution on September 16th. We were successful with that, and I feel we'll be successful going forward. Best estimate of what kind of timeline that you're working with here with executions is, what are the families telling you? What are you hearing about? How imminent? working with here with executions is what are the families telling you? What are you hearing about? How imminent? Ali Muazzami, the 20-year-old, he's reportedly set to be executed in just a few hours in the morning in Tehran. Salman Yassin, we don't know. It could be hours. It could be days. They

lie. They do mock executions. They don't tell these people that they're going to be executed. Sometimes they tell them everything's fine. That's what Salman Yassin's family told me, is that he actually kind of has no idea what's going on. They spoke to him on the phone and he doesn't know what his situation is. And so it's up to us to amplify his voice and make sure that nothing happens to him. Nazanin Nouri is with us. She's an activist. She's an actor. She's a daughter of Iranian immigrants. She's been running around. She was at the UN. She went to now Washington, D.C., because it's Noor and these other people who are bonding together to try to get people to understand

that this affects all of us. Thank you for coming in for this update. What do you need people to know, Nazanin? Thank you again for having me on, Chris, to highlight what's going on in Iran. You did mention Majid Reza Rahabar that was executed this morning in Tehran, unfortunately. that was executed this morning in Tehran, unfortunately. Just to show the cruelness and the inhumane, archaic nature of this regime, his mother was summoned to the jail to see him the night before, not realizing that he was going to be executed the next morning.

Nobody had any idea. They even took two smiling pictures together that have been circulating on the internet, and she didn't realize that this was the last time that she was going to see her son. She went home. She received a call. The family received a call at 7 a.m and they were just your son has been executed we've already buried him and you can go uh you know over the site and find the body and that's what they're doing to people um and as you said they executed him publicly hanging by a crane and there's abhorrent atrocious video footage of it that's been

circulating on the internet that we're not sharing, of course, because it's being used to scare people, and we don't want to take part in that. But this is just going to continue, and this is why the international community needs to take swift action. Five more young men are lined up for the same imminent miscarriage of justice, is your understanding, yes? Yes, and actually one of them is an actor, a well-known theater actor named Hossein Mohammadi, and he was also charged with this corruption on Earth. We hear that it's reported that he's facing imminent execution.

A young man named Mohamed Hosseini, you won't even believe what he was slated to be executed for. There was a viral trend where Iranians were going out to the streets these last couple of months and handing out chocolates to other Iranians to motivate them to kind of just share this love and understanding of we know times are tough right now. They would fist bump, you would open your hand and there would be a chocolate in there. He's slated to be executed because he was handing out chocolates to girls who weren't wearing a headscarf. There's Mehdi Khadami, who's a 22-year-old karate champion. His father says that he has been tortured and forced into confession and that the lawyer that he was assigned won't even call him back. So there's

no due process. Of course, these are all going to be sham trials. There's Hamid Rahman Hassan, who's a radiologist. He was actually arrested along with his wife while they were attending a mourning ceremony for a slain protester named Hadis Najafi. So he's been charged with exactly the same correction on earth war against God charges. He's slated to be executed. It's been reported. And Reza Arya, who's a father of two, who was also forced into making a confession to a crime that he swears that he did not commit. And again, President Raisi oversaw the 1988 executions of thousands of political dissidents and prison. And we're seeing that happen again. Now, there are all these politicians in America

that are standing up and making things up to sound righteous and sound outraged. I'm covering this story because it's the job. Nazanin and other Americans are crying out because of their blood ties to this country and their respect for life. We say we value young women. We say we're trying to do the right thing.

And nobody is standing up and shouting about how outrageous this is the way they should. And it would be the right use of their power. Nazanin Noor, you're using your power. And I appreciate it. And you'll continue to have a platform here as will other advocates. Thank you for the update. And I appreciate you fighting the good fight. May I say one more thing, Chris? We would really love to global community in addition to the sanctions, targeted sanctions that the EU has put on the Islamic Republic officials, we would love for the rest of the global community to stand up and recall ambassadors, to freeze assets, to place travel bans, and revoke visas of regime officials and their family members as well. And thank you so much for having me on again.

All right. We don't know where it goes, but now we understand how we got here. Please subscribe. Please follow. I'm going to continue to cover this. You can get it on my social media as well, but we'll keep putting it together to keep an eye on this, to keep a focus on this. Because if you care about freedom, you have to care about what's happening in Iran. And the idea that it won't affect us here, why do you think they're helping Russia so much in Ukraine? Why do you think they're causing so much trouble whenever they can in the Middle East as they did in Syria? Why? Because they're against us. Not the Iranian people. The extreme Islamist power base there that's in power, the Ayatollah

and down. That's what to watch out for. That's why we're keeping an eye on it. I'll see you again soon.