The protests in Iran ignored by the Spanish government

In the latest edition of "De Cara al Mundo", Atalayar's programme on Onda Madrid, we had the intervention of Nilufar Saberi, Iranian activist, who spoke about the current situation of repression by the Ayatollahs' regime and the lack of support from the Spanish government in the protests for freedom in Iran. 

A few months ago you were here with us and you told us about the protests in numerous Iranian cities against the Ayatollahs' regime, how is the situation so far? 

The situation is that the street protests have had to be stopped because it was not feasible to go out on the street and get shot cleanly or shot in the eyes with buckshot. More than 500 people have been blinded and more than 600 people have been shot dead. More than 20,000 people have been arrested. Among all these people, about 10% were minors.  

Now the protests have changed their form. They are spontaneous protests and spaced out in places so that as soon as they come to repress them, the protesters can escape better. 

Iranians are taking money out of the bank to write on the notes they take out slogans like "Women, life and freedom" or "Down with the dictator", and those are the notes that are circulating in the Iranian cash market. That is the voice of Iran. They also write slogans on walls, they write slogans on walls, they hang posters on bridges. Interestingly all the people who do these activities at night are identified with drones, they are stopped and their close circle is chased. Let's say the protests continue, but they have changed in appearance. 

Do you think the regime considers the executions of four people in such an inhumane and bloody way as hanging them from a crane in a square to be counterproductive for them? 

This is not the first time they have executed from a crane in public. They have done it in multiple executions, not just one person. The Islamist theocracy of Iran is the number one country in the world in terms of executions, apart from China. For them the concept of humanity does not exist, it does not enter into their fundamentalist Islamist ideology. They are just trying to survive the circumstances, like any other virus, and spread. 

What they have realised is that outright violence takes its toll on them, especially in international public opinion, because domestic public opinion has never mattered to them. Now they do punishments in a different way. The supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, said that those young people, students and schoolchildren, who go out to protest against the regime should be punished because, according to them, they have been brainwashed by the influence of the Internet and foreign powers, namely the enemy, which for them is the United States and Israel.  

But they continue to punish the population. Apart from the beatings - which is a hallmark of Iran's Islamist theocracy - now what they do, for example, with women who engage in civil disobedience, and there are more and more of them, is that on the third warning they freeze their identity cards and they cease to exist for a month, which is very short. They are not allowed to enter any service, public or private. They cannot take a taxi because they punish the taxi driver as well. They cannot enter a bank. They have fired a ship manager for serving a woman without a veil. 

And they poison young girls. What information do you have about poisoning? Where does it come from? How do they do it? 

The poisoning of the schoolgirls, who are minors, has been going on since the end of November. They started poisoning the university students in the middle of the protests from the canteens, with water, so that they could not go out to the protests. And later on they took revenge and punishment with the school girls, as the supreme leader asked to punish. 

They are using biological and chemical weapons against minors and they want to sell it as mass hysteria. What is more, several important personalities on television talk about the fact that the Iranian authorities have been studying everything that has happened, that they have sent prestigious scientists from various countries to analyse it and that they have concluded that nothing toxic has been found in the samples. They speak of mass hysteria, referring to mirror neurons and acts of mimicry.  

Reports from Islamist terrorists who falsify absolutely everything, who have never been transparent about anything to do with their actions, cannot be trusted.  

What's more, they already started massacring in 1978 in the cinema in Abadan, where they locked up almost 700 people, set fire to the cinema and burnt them all to death. And they said the Sah did it, but the Sah denied it. Their massacres started before they came to power, they have continued to do it and will continue to do it. 

Is the international solidarity you are receiving sufficient? For example, you were at the demonstration on 8 March in the streets of Madrid, but I personally miss the Spanish government ministers of Unidas Podemos raising their voices against what is happening in Iran.  

It is a very important issue. We are receiving solidarity from the people at the international level as soon as they know what is happening. The solidarity is barbaric. It is rare that, in the daily talks I give on the situation in Iran, the audience doesn't come crying and hug me. They tell me that they will do whatever they can. 

The attitude of the governments is regrettable. They do the opposite of the people. Governments have an interest in keeping Iran's Islamist theocracy in power. A weak government at the tip of the spear is always much more manageable than an independent, developing and prosperous Iran. They do not want another South Korea or another Japan, which would be a matter of nothing in Iran if we really had a government that looked out for the good of the people. 

We are not getting any kind of solidarity from the governments. In fact, on 1 March we had a meeting with the Human Rights Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where they listened to us very kindly at first. Let's say that they are sorry for what is happening in Iran, they would like to do something, but at the same time they recognise that the Spanish government has always maintained very good relations with Iran for decades. So when we protested, they told us that they were referring to the country, regardless of who governs it. And those of us who had gone to the meeting pointed out that Iran is invaded by Islamist extremists and that this cordial relationship with them means that they continue to massacre us as they have been doing for 44 years.  

On 14 February we had another meeting, this time with the Minister for Equality, Irene Montero. The meeting was very cordial, there was a lot of verbal support, but to date we have no acts that demonstrate this solidarity and that could provide support for our struggle for freedom and democracy. 

Moreover, these Iranian Islamist radicals are trying to spread their influence in other parts of the world, such as Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and now also North Africa, by supplying drones that they have provided to the Polisario Front and endangering stability in the region. So we should be much more aware of what we are talking about, what they represent and what the ayatollahs do. 

Of course that is the case. Islamism is a fundamentalist ideology that only seeks to establish itself and spread, like any other kind of fundamentalism comparable to a virus. In fact, they buy Islamists. They pay families a salary to convert to Islam - which is not Islam - to have their women wear the hijab, to go to mosques and to propagandise by this means all over the world.  

If we do not stop this, if we do not overthrow where Islamist extremism was born, which was in 1979 when the Islamists came to power in Iran and spread to the rest of the region and other parts of the world, we will certainly have it in Spain because for them Spain is not a land to be conquered, but to be reconquered.