I’m not able to record this today, but I wanted to get it published as it is on my mind.
What to say on my birthday. I’m blessed to turn 70 today. This morning, I was about to leave for a boxing class when I saw the above video. It cut so deeply into my heart, the minute I got back from the class, I sat down to write this. I thought, what better way to remember my birthday than by remembering the brave youths murdered by the Iranian regime.
Meli Imani is the young woman in the video, singing the song Khodafez (Goodbye) in the streets during the January protests in occupied Iran. In the video, Imani sings while the sound of the “Morality Police” can be heard approaching. In Iran, it is illegal for women to sing in public.
None of the young women killed by the regime would have been able to attend a boxing class as I did today. So many things we take for granted in the West. Unless you have lived under tyranny as I have done, you cannot comprehend it. I suppose that’s why this speaks so deeply to me, and I write so much about it.
And so, our foolish, privileged American youth, who can’t survive without $4 bottled water and that’s just the beginning of all they are blessed with, ignore those who they should stand up for and instead protest for Hamas and call them “resistant fighters”.
The young people remembered in the video below here are the REAL MARTYRS, murdered by the Satanic Iranian regime. Not evil men like Yayha Sinwar, who was known as the Butcher of Khan Yunis BY HIS OWN PEOPLE because he liked to strangle them with his hands. What has happened to the West that we are so lost? Who cannot see the evil in this man while the good in these young men and women whose deaths he would have celebrated.
By the way, music, musical instruments and singing are haram in Islam. Every single so-called “moderate” Muslim who argues otherwise is disobeying the Quran and the commands of the Prophet Mohammed who says Allah gave him the commands.
Music is the closest we get to God. That is why these young people sing and dance. That is why tyrannical regimes hate them for it. Look how free they are when they dance and sing. How powerful their spirits are and how it inspires us to be the same.
Imagine for a moment a world without music. This is one of the reasons why I will always say Allah is NOT the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Allah is not the God of Jews and Christians. Read the Psalms and 2 Samuel and many other portions of the Bible. David danced before the Lord. He was a talented singer and a musician.
Imagine a world where you know if you dance and sing you could be killed. But you dance and sing anyway. Below is a heart wrenching video of some of these beautiful youth who were that brave:
The death of Mahsa Amini ignited the protests. As a result, the Islamic regime went on a killing spree to strike terror into the hearts of the youths who took to the streets at this cold-blooded murder. But they did not stop protesting, even though they knew it could mean their lives.
Let’s say their names and pray for their families.
Masha Jina Amini 2000-2022: The young woman who ignited protests across Iran. She was not an activist. She simply came to Tehran to visit her brother and was picked up by police for not wearing her hijab properly. She was beaten in the police van and shortly thereafter began to lose her vision. She died in the hospital.
Sarina Esmailzadeh 2006-2022: Died on 23 September 2022, of severe beating on the head by security forces. She was 16 years old.
Mershad Shahidi 2002-2022: A celebrity chef, he was killed by security forces before his 20th birthday, reigniting protests across the Islamic Republic.
Nika Shakarami 2005-2022: Nika vanished on 20 September in Tehran after participating in anti-regime protests. Her body was discovered eight days later in a construction site dustbin near the protest area, showing bruises and injuries inconsistent with initial official claims of a fall from height. A leaked internal judicial memorandum, details her detention by Basij militia and intelligence agents, followed by sexual assault and fatal beating in custody, with orders to stage the scene as suicide
Khodanur Lojei 1995-2022: Khodanur was a Baluchi dancer and protester. He was shot in the kidney and spine during the 2022 Zahedan massacre and died two days later from severe bleeding and delayed medical care. The picture below is said to be of him with his hands tied to a flagpole with a bottle of water put in front of him (but out of his reach). It has become one of the symbols of the ongoing protests Iran.
Bilal Nasravi: It is also said the man in the above photo is possibly Baloch singer, Bilal Nasravi. A renowned singer, he was stabbed to death by unidentified individuals. It is alleged he was killed by Iranian authorities for singing revolutionary songs. He was detained by Iranian intelligence agencies after singing a song with the title “Inshallah Balochistan will be free soon”, in July 2022.
Kian Pirfalak 2013-2022: Just nine-years-old, Kian was killed in Izeh during the crackdown on the Mahsa Amini protests. He was shot by government security forces while sitting in his parents' vehicle.
Yalda Aghafazli 2003-2022: Yalda was a 19-year-old art student who was killed on October 26, 2022 - her 19th birthday - while participating in protests in Tehran. Security forces beat her so severely that she died from internal bleeding. Her family was threatened not to speak about her death, but her art professor courageously shared her story and her final paintings with the world.
Seyed Mohammad Hosseini 1993-2023: Murdered under torture including electric shocks, beating with iron rods, and being kicked unconscious, he was forced to confess to charges he denied. His dream was to continue helping young people through martial arts training. He was executed alongside Mohammad Mehdi Karami after a grossly unfair trial.
Mohammad Mehdi Karami 2001-2023: As with most others, Karate champion Mohammed was convicged of Moharebeh ("waging war against God") or Mofsed-e-filarz ("corruption on Earth"), which are punishable by death in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Beaten so hard [during his arrest], that he lost consciousness," leading arresting officers believed he was dead and threw his body near a courthouse, but before they left, they realized he was still alive and so the mock trial and execution.
Look at all these young and beautiful youths, still children …
I started a boxing class for girls in Luxor, Egypt. A miracle in itself. I was chastised by woke leftists in the United States, ganging up on me on social media, accusing me of being a white supremacist, colonialist “Karen” who wanted to impose my culture on girls in Luxor due to my “white guilt.” With that level of hate, it felt like they would have lynched me if they’d been a mob in front of me, worse than the mob of men I face in Luxor.
Yes, I was viciously attacked online, mostly by women. That would be “women of color” (WOC) and white women eager to prove how much they hate themselves by bowing to their sisters in “resistance.” Such brave keyboard warriors. When I politely said I didn’t know what WOC meant, they attacked me further. Silly me, I hadn’t been paying attention to PC language. I’d been too busy traveling and teaching boxing and writing and art in order to assuage my “white guilt.”
None of those women sitting so comfortably in their Western homes knew anything about courage, or about actually DOING something to stand up in injustice. That’s because they don’t really believe in anything. They have been indoctrinated to spout the latest fad, and when that is done, they move on to the next. They are empty and so they need to constantly fill themselves with anything that distracts them from that emptiness. But they can never be satisfied because it is based on nothing but hot air.
Put the truth of these beautiful souls in your hearts. This is substance. This is real. This is truth in the face of lies. Never let them be forgotten.
Ask yourself what you would do if it came to a point where you had to make a choice to stand up and speak or cower and be silent. We never really know until that moment comes. But we can prepare ourselves by standing up and speaking out NOW.
God bless you today and in the days ahead.
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Some of my other essays about the brave women and men of Iran.
Sentenced to Death: It’s easy to be an idiot online, spouting lies when there are no consequences. These brave Iranian women face torture and death for speaking the truth.
The Insanity of Western Women Defending Oppression: “But I was to learn that choosing to wear the hijab is much easier than choosing to take it off. And that lesson was an important reminder of how truly ‘free’ choice is.” ~ Mona Eltahawy
What is a Martyr?: “The God we worship was sacrificed, crucified on the cross, tortured, spit on, and was still forgiving. This is our highest example.” ~ Mosab Hassan Yousef, author of Son of Hamas
