Violence escalating on the streets of Iran as protests enter their third month,
police crackdowns becoming more brutal.
Videos posted on social media show a crowd inside a packed subway station fleeing
security forces as they opened fire with metal pellets.
People panicked, rushing for the exits as officers keep shooting.
In another video, police are seen storming one of the trains beating protesters
who tried to escape through the subway.
>> Yes, the protests continue in Iran, now in their third months.
And while the protests are continuing,
the strike back against the protesters is escalating as well.
So far this week, five protesters have received death sentences for
their role in the ongoing protest.
Now there had been rumors going around earlier this week that 15,000 had received
those sentences.
That was a bit of a miscommunication.
Now, Parliamentarians in Iran said that about 15,000 people
should get decisive punishment because they have waged war against God.
But it isn't up to the Parliamentarians to determine the punishment,
it's the judiciary.
But in five cases, so far, they are agreeing with the Parliamentarians.
And they've said that these rioters hit and
killed a policeman with their car, in one case.
The second possessed a knife and a gun.
The third blocked traffic and caused, quote unquote, terror.
The fourth was convicted of a knife attack.
All of that information, of course, is coming from the Iranian government and so
you can choose to make the questionable decision of trusting literally any
of that, if you'd like.
Amnesty International says the five were among at least 21 detainees
charged with security related offenses that are punishable by death under
the Sharia-based legal system,
including the crimes of enmity against God and corruption on Earth.
These sentences are preliminary and
can be appealed for whatever that ends up being worth.
But bear in mind on a per capita basis, Iran already executes more people than
any other country in the world despite strong competition from the United States.
And so it's not up into the thousands yet.
It's not up into the hundreds for
the executions except the executions that are taking place on the streets
because at least 348 protesters have just been killed while protesting.
Nearly 16,000 have been arrested in mass crackdowns.
And so while we haven't yet seen exactly how far the judiciary is willing to go
with the death sentences, they have begun to issue them and there's a lot of people
still waiting to find out what's gonna happen to them in the end.
What do y'all think?
>> Mas.
>> I was born in Iran.
I left at the age of six, right at the revolution and
I've seen this government abuse, kill, torture it's people now for 43 years.
What I like to say is that the Islamic regime took Americans hostage for
444 days and they've taken Iranians hostage for 43 years.
And what we're seeing right now is unprecedented.
We are seeing basically a situation that began with Massa Amini who was
a 22-year-old walking in the streets, had her hair out a little bit under the hijab.
They arrested her and they beat her to death.
And then true to the Islamic regime's fashion, they lied about it and said,
she died of natural causes, a perfectly healthy 22-year-old young woman.
And so that's led to these protests.
And as an Iranian-American, I have been immersed in this for the past two,
three months.
Every day I wake up, I see videos.
Every night, I see videos all the time.
And the one thing I've been asking is for
my friends in the West Americans to pay attention.
And I'm happy that you guys cover this and I think that we are getting some
progress because what happens is every day, we hear the brutality.
I think the more brutal this regime gets, the more desperate they're getting.
Because what's happening is it's causing more and more protests.
Most recently, they killed a 10-year-old boy.
And they, the parents, this just shows you how brutal this regime is.
The parents had to take their kid's corpse with them and they took him home.
And there's pictures of this kid now with ice around him cuz they're trying to
maintain the kid and then take him to the burial.
Because they didn't want the officials to get a hold of the kid and
take the kid and lie about the story.
By the way, the officials tried to claim that it was an ISIS hit.
But it was actually authorities of the Iranian government.
So we're seeing them get more and more brutal but
we're seeing the young people in Iran are done with it.
The women of Iran are done with it.
The people of Iran are done with the oppression.
And one of the things I try to tell my American friends is,
this Islamic regime is not Muslim like, good Muslim,
somebody who's minding their own business and it's just religious.
This is a theocratic and a totalitarian regime and autocratic regime.
Who, when they came into power,
the first thing they did was they told women cover yourselves up.
You're now worth half of a man in court when it comes to testimonies.
You can't do many things men can and
men can continue to go about their lives the way they want.
And so they oppress women right away.
And after that, they go after LGBTQ.
And after that, they go after religious minorities.
And when Americans go, wow, that seems like so far away.
I go, no, it's not.
Just this year, the Supreme Court took a woman's right to choose away.
So they went after women.
And then Kris Thomas said that he plans to go after gay marriage next,
or at least he alluded to it.
And who they go after next is religious minorities.
So I'm here to tell you that Iran is a cautionary tale and
you should support the people of Iran in their fight for democracy and freedom.
And at the same time, watch your own back and don't let people like
the Herschel Walkers and the Marjorie Taylor Greenes and the Lauren Boeberts and
the others who wanna instil religion into politics to do it.
Because if they do, this will be a handmaid's tale.
And you'll be thinking, remember when Mas was on TYT before.
He went to political prison in the US for
talking against the Christian Republic of America.
>> Yeah, so on build off a couple of things that Mas said.
So I like the way you framed it.
In fact, I bet you that if you told Republican voters,
can you believe that Iran is so oppressive that recently,
their courts took away a woman's right to control her own body?
They're like, that's outrageous.
Should we attack Iran?
Well, we probably should, right?
Just kidding.
That wasn't Iran, that was America.
They won't even get it.
I swear to God, they won't get it.
So be careful of what we judge there for fear that it might come here, right?
So we should be on guard in both cases.
Now when it comes to Iran, I'm gonna say thank God we didn't attack them.
The idiot right wingers, including Donald Trump by killing Soleimani,
their top general, was instigating towards a war.
Now, why do I say that?
Because two-thirds of Iran is under 30 years old.
They don't remember the corruption of the Shia.
All they remember is the corruption of the Mullahs and they hate the Mullahs,
they hate how oppressive it is.
If we had dropped one bomb on Iran, they would have all turned against us and
in favor of their own government.
That's how bombing works.
And so the neoconservatives are so dumb.
They're so dumb and that's why thank God, we don't listen to them.
The peace treaty that Obama made with Iran was the best thing that ever happened.
Trump was a moron for taking it away.
By the way, Biden isn't.
Now it's too late, now you can't negotiate with these guys in the middle of
a rebellion slash revolution, right?
But he should have brought it back.
He's an idiot for not doing that.
Cuz the minute that Iran has a conflict with America, they're gonna be able to
rally their own people on the side of their corrupt government.
And you don't want that.
What you want is this.
I know it's oppressive, it's terrible to see.
I feel terrible for the people that have died.
But this is what a popular uprising against an oppressive government
looks like.
Let them do it.
Let them do their own work here instead of interfering it and making it worse.
So in a sense, it's awful, right, to see these protesters being killed, etcetera.
In a sense, it's wonderful to see an actual population rise up organically and
not have others interfere.
And then last thing is, that statement.
They said, it's enmity against God and corruption on Earth.
First of all, the Ayatollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and
all the powerful people in Iran's government, their corruption on Earth.
They steal almost all of Iran's money and they put it in their pockets.
Are they alone and doing that?
No, tons of politicians all across the world steal the money of their citizens
and put it in their pockets.
Let alone Donald Trump over here funnelling the money to his own
properties, etcetera, etcetera.
But do the Mullahs do that?
100%, they are is a corruption and enmity against God.
These folks are all good Muslims, okay?
They believe in God.
They just don't believe in you.
They don't believe that the Ayatollah is like,
I just talked to Allah the other day and he says I should get all the money.
He says I should get all the power.
And he says I should kill you every once in a while,
if you dare to disagree with me.
Really, did he, did he?
Cuz I don't think he did.
And is Allah so weak according to the Ayatollah that he can't do his own work,
that he has to go and oppress people and kill people on behalf of Allah?
That's gotta be the weakest God I've ever heard in my life.
So never believe anyone, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, doesn't matter.
That says that they're speaking on behalf of God.
100% of the time, it is 100% bias.
And they're actually speaking on their own behalf and
they're probably the most corrupt dangerous person you've ever seen.
>> And I'll piggyback on that real quickly.
Sorry, Cenk, that I think that a lot of the young people in Iran aren't even
religious anymore because of the corruption they've seen with this regime.
So and and the whole point is you should be able to practice whatever religion
you want, whether you're muslim Baha'i christian jewish zoroastrian
whatever it is and and it's it's this regime has been so brutal and so corrupt.
Just like you just said the supreme leader,
the this guy's the supreme leader and he supposedly has some connection to God.
No, he's just some old dude who read the Koran more than you and I did and
that's it.
He's some dude and the young people are done with it and it's so
I'm telling you I'm so
inspired as an Iranian American when I first came to America in the late 78 and
then the hostage crisis happened back then I would tell people I'm Iranian and
I would cringe because I was waiting for them to call me terrorist towelhead or
effing Iranian and I'm not kidding now as a comedian recently when I've gone
on stage in front of an american audience and mentioned I'm from Iran and mentioned
the women of Iran and the young people of Iran american audiences have applauded and
I go my gosh, the revolution is already happening which is the image of Iranians
in the west has already started changing and the fact
that people are distinguishing between the Islamic regime and the people of Iran.
Somebody, somebody said this Nazanin Bayati, my friend who is an actress and
a human rights activist, she said it's not the Islamic republic of Iran,
it's the Islamic republic versus Iran.
And again I hope anybody who's watching this who is a T.
Y. T. Fan will follow different voices that are out there talking about
this issue and retweet and repost because the more we shine a light on this
corrupt regime on this brutal regime, the more likely that the revolution for
the for freedom in Iran will be successful