RASC News Agency: The Coalition of Independent Women’s Protest Movements has strongly condemned the Iranian government’s policy towards Afghanistani refugees, following the brutal treatment of a 15-year-old Afghanistani asylum seeker by Iranian police, labeling it as “horrific and deeply distressing.” In a statement released by the coalition, they declared, “This action flagrantly violates international human rights laws and is emblematic of racial oppression and apartheid.”
The statement further highlighted that the current treatment of Afghanistani migrants by Iran and Pakistan is unparalleled globally, urging the United Nations to hold Iran accountable for these abuses. The protesting women denounced the mistreatment of migrants as a severe violation of human dignity, condemning the actions of the Iranian police as “xenophobic” and “a manifestation of racial apartheid,” asserting that those responsible are gross violators of human rights.
In a video widely circulated on social media, an Iranian police officer is seen forcefully pressing his knee against the neck of Mehdi Mousavi, a young Afghanistani migrant, in a violent attempt to arrest him, while his mother’s desperate attempts to intervene are in vain. This incident has sparked a social media campaign under the hashtag “Take Your Knee Off My Neck.”
Many users have drawn parallels between this incident and the murder of George Floyd, an African-American man who was killed in 2020 when a U.S. police officer knelt on his neck. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, had previously cited the George Floyd incident as evidence of the U.S. government’s oppressive nature.
