Iran protests: Wanted leader in hiding from regime says ‘people have become more daring’
Kawa adjusts his baseball cap and sips some hot tea.
He is a slight, softly spoken young man with few distinguishing features.
His friends roar with laughter when he asks us not to show his ears on camera. It’s a moment of levity, but Kawa is deadly serious.
As one of Iran’s protest leaders, he is a wanted man, and the threat of imprisonment and torture hangs over him.
“At night, I’m always ready to flee if they raid our house. I have prepared everything.”
We are in a safe house over the border in northern Iraq. He’s briefly left Iran but is still taking no risks – Iranian agents operate here.
“You sense the fear and terror in society,” he admits, but adds “morale is very high”.
“We are waiting and looking for a window to come back to the street. Anything small that happens would bring people back to the street.”
More than 500 people are estimated to have been killed since nationwide protests broke out in September, over the death of a young woman in police custody who was arrested for wearing her hijab “incorrectly”.
Kawa thinks Iranian society is hardening against the regime. He tells me a story about one night when the feared Basij paramilitary forces fired on a mosque as they were readying bodies for burial.
The Basij fire on a mosque in Iran
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“People had gone to the hospitals so the corpses would not be taken by the regime. They [the protesters] brought a body to wash it and bury it,” he says.
“At that moment the regime fired on the mosque.
“People gathered in the mosque and the regime fired from the roof and several people were wounded. They fired on people with AK47s, firing round after round.
“There were women and children with us, and I did not see anyone with us wearing military fatigues. The way they shot at us was like they were attacking an armed group, but we were civilians.”
‘More violence ahead’
Kawa also believes there will be more violence in the coming months as the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution approaches.
Sky News has been sent footage of protesters peppered with hundreds of pellets embedded in their skin. It is proof that the Iranian regime is using shotguns against the demonstrators.
We also have video of doctors working to save these patients in secret makeshift clinics in private apartments – if the protesters go for treatment in hospital they will immediately identify themselves to the regime.
The doctors are taking huge risks too, smuggling medicine and supplies out of hospitals to help the protesters.
Protests in Tehran in September last year
It’s proof of an extensive underground network – the anti-government feeling is deeper than street level.
“The doctors’ help… is of critical importance to the wounded protesters,” an activist inside Iran told Sky News.
“If these secret medical teams were not available, most of the wounded would most likely die because infections would spread to their bodies from their injuries.
“Some, whose medical situations were not good, had to have their hands or arms amputated.”
‘People have become more daring’
Kawa will go back to Iran to continue organising the uprising. I ask him how he feels at that prospect.
“I feel it is my responsibility to go back and resume my activity until my people are free,” he says.
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“I see victory in the fact that people have become united, they have one objective and they are closer to each other.
“People have become more daring and towards the end of the Islamic republic.
“I want the Islamic republic to disappear and for our people to be freed.”
Countries in South and Southeast Asia have been coping with a weeks-long heatwave which has seen record temperatures sweep parts of the region.
Pupils in the Philippines, India and Bangladesh have been told to stay at home and learn remotely due to a severe health risk.
Schools in Cambodia have also cut back on their hours.
Cambodia faces its hottest temperature in 170 years, according to meteorologists – as high as 43C (109F).
Bangkok in Thailand has reached 40C (104 F), but the heat index is said to have topped 50 C (122 F) due to the heat being trapped among the mass of buildings.
The United Nations Children’s Fund warned in April that the heat could put the lives of millions of children at risk and asked people who care for them to take extra precautions.
A spokesperson for UNICEF said around 243 million children were exposed to hotter and longer heatwaves.
A woman drinks from a public tap in India. Pic: AP
They said the increased heat was “putting them at risk of a multitude of heat-related illnesses, and even death”.
Thirty people in Thailand have died from heatstroke in the past month, according to data from the country’s health ministry.
People are being advised to avoid outdoor activities and to stay hydrated.
Several towns in Myanmar were included on lists of the hottest spots globally last month, with temperatures reaching 48.2C (118F) in at least one case.
People stock up on water in India. Pic: AP
Parts of eastern India also experienced their hottest April on record.
Kerala, on India’s west coast, this week instructed all schools and colleges to close until Monday, while influencers in Bangladesh have encouraging people to plant trees in response to the record heat.
Benjamin Horton, director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore, said there were three factors for heatwaves: a naturally-occurring climate phenomenon known as El Nino, an increase in global temperatures, and human-induced climate change.
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Brazil is currently experiencing another climate phenomenon – La Nina – with 39 dead and 68 missing in floods across the country.
More than 24,000 people have been forced to leave their homes due to the flooding.
Scientists believe the naturally-occurring phenomenon has intensified due to the impact of climate change.
China has been branded “a bully” and an international lawbreaker after its ships blasted Philippine vessels with water cannon in the South China Sea.
Sky News was on board the BRP Bagacay when a Chinese vessel fired water at it, causing significant damage.
Philippine coastguard spokesman Jay Tarriela told Sky News that this week’s confrontation was the first time China had used “such aggression” against their ships.
“The metal parts and the railing were bent. The canopy was also destroyed. So this came as a surprise for us that China never hesitated to use brute force,” he said.
“It completely justifies us calling The People’s Republic of China a bully country.”
Jay Tarriela, a spokesman for the Philippine Coastguard, told Sky News that China is a ‘bully’
The Philippine coastguard was on a resupply mission to the Scarborough Shoal to deliver food and fuel to Philippine fishermen when they were struck.
The submerged reef lies in disputed waters. China claims sovereignty over the reef but it is much closer to the Philippines and lies within its legally recognised exclusive economic zone.
The vessel Sky News was on board was the closest the coastguard had ever been to the shoal – just 600 metres away from it.
Asked if the mission to the shoal was a provocative move by the Philippine coastguard, Commodore Tarriela denied they were “poking the bear” but rather “driving the bear out of our own territory”.
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Sky witnesses China-Philippine confrontation
The Philippines has been stepping up its patrols in the area under the instruction of President Bongbong Marcos, and reasserting its claim to the shoal in recent months.
It has raised the spectre of open conflict. While neither side currently wants that, there is now a greater threat of open conflict.
Asked what the end game was for the Philippines, Commodore Tarriela said their priority was to “tell the world” about China’s aggression.
China’s coastguard fired water at Philippine coastguard vessel BRP Bagacay while Sky was onboard
He said their secondary goal was to ensure “like-minded states” also made China “fall in line and respect international law”.
“Otherwise, it’s everybody’s loss,” he added.
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Philippine government policy is not to resist using water cannon against Chinese vessels – and Commodore Tarriela insisted that policy remains in place after the confrontation.
The government also remains intensely determined to protect the waters it believes it has every right to operate in.
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“We’re not going to yield and we’re not going to surrender a square inch of our territory,” Commodore Tarriela insisted.
Beijing has called the action its own coastguard took as “necessary”.
Speaking at the Chinese foreign ministry’s daily news conference, spokesperson Lin Jian described the coastguard’s conduct as “professional, proper, and lawful”.
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