Iranians in Miami, and around the world hold freedom rallies and call for Mullahs to be sanctioned. Meanwhile, Biden Administration lifts sanctions on Iran and Russia.

“It’s not important if you are monarchist, republican or religious, raise your hands if you are a victim of the Islamic Republic and unite.” - Masih Alinejad, February 11, 2023

Iranians in Miami hold a freedom rally for Iran, and for Mullahs to be sanctioned.

On February 11, 2023, Iranians around the world protested the 44th anniversary of the Islamic Regime taking power in Iran. In the United States, Iranian activists circulated petitions for the U.S. Congress to pass the Mahsa Act that would impose sanctions on the Iranian regime, and the Mullahs that run it.

Less than 24 hours earlier, on February 10, 2023, the Biden administration informed Congress that it was waiving nonproliferation sanctions on Iran so that Rosatom - Russia’s State Nuclear Energy Corporation - could profit without being subject U.S. sanctions.

The waivers roll back the Trump Administration’s sanctions on the Islamic Republic and allow Iran to cooperate with Russia at Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities.  This will speed up Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons.

This is madness.

Russia dramatically escalated its invasion of Ukraine on February 22, 2022 and a bloody war has raged on the European continent over the past year with hundreds of thousands dead.  The Biden Administration failed to heed calls to preemptively sanction Russia before Putin widened the war, but imposed them afterwards.

The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to sponsor terrorism, and since nationwide protests erupted in Iran on September 17, 2022 over over 500 nonviolent protesters were killed, and over 19,700 arrested.

Iranian terrorism has also reached the U.S. mainland.

Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad was targeted by the Iranian Intelligence Services in a plot to kidnap her for rendition to Iran, revealed the FBI on July 13, 2021. A little over a year later on July 31, 2022 Khalid Mehdiyev, age 23, was found outside her home with an AK-47, a high-capacity magazine and more than $1,000 in cash. Mehdiyev is from Azerbaijan, and according to Jason Brodsky at the United Against Nuclear Iran nonprofit the dictatorship in Iran has been known to contract "Azeri hitmen to target Israelis in Cyprus."  

In the United States on August 12, 2022 novelist Salman Rushdie was repeatedly stabbed, and nearly died. In 1989,  Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie's murder and set a $3 million bounty.  Iranian state media celebrated the 2022 attack. Friends of free speech organized readings of Salman Rushdie's work around the world in protest.

 

On an equally ominous front the Iranian Mullahs' foreign minister last week conducted a tour of Latin American dictatorships beginning with Nicaragua, where Daniel Ortega openly defended Tehran's right to have nuclear weapons, followed by a visit to Venezuela to meet with dictator Nicolas Maduro, and concluded the tour of despots visiting Miguel Diaz-Canel in Cuba. 

Los Angeles today. The city has had some of the largest demonstrations outside of #Iran since the beginning of the #IranRevolution in September, 2022. pic.twitter.com/nmG4RV8jIs

— NUFDI (@NUFDIran) February 11, 2023

Both Havana and Caracas were on the UN Human Rights Council last year, and sought to cover up the Islamic Regime of Iran's gross and systematic human rights violations in key votes.  Venezuela ran for re-election to the Council, but was voted off.  There is a petition underway to remove Cuba from the UN Human Rights Council, and here is where you can sign it.

Iranian oppositions unites against the Islamic republic.
This is the new phase of Iran’s revolution against the gender apartheid regime.
Both within and outside of Iran we are united in common cause for a secular, pluralistic, democratic Iran,
And this pic.twitter.com/2ZJIpsvey9… https://t.co/HgY6uGtm7E

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 11, 2023

Now is not the time to lift sanctions on Russia or Iran, and their respective allies, but to tighten them in response to their illegal actions.  The Iranian opposition is united, and through six months of sustained nationwide protests with hundreds dead, and thousands jailed the Iranian people have demonstrated their rejection of the Islamist regime in Iran. 

Why is the Biden Administration lifting sanctions that will benefit both Russia, and Iran in their nuclear programs?