BBCPERSIAN — broadcast
20261102 020000 UTC
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[00:00:00] If Mr. Trump is going to lose,
[00:00:03] if some polls at least
[00:00:06] say so, then do you think this defeat should be attributed
[00:00:09] to this war or
[00:00:11] not?
[00:00:17] This is a really good question.
[00:00:21] I think
[00:00:23] President Trump's
[00:00:26] popularity has declined and is now.
[00:00:40] The second problem was fighting immigration, and
[00:00:43] then the law of war with Iran. But
[00:00:47] Americans were able to face the war with Iran
[00:00:51] for two reasons, facing both sides
[00:00:54] of the story. One is the issue of fuel
[00:00:58] and rising prices. which has been to their detriment,
[00:01:01] and the second is that many
[00:01:05] traditional Republicans
[00:01:08] are those who
[00:01:11] want to restore glory to
[00:01:13] America. They don't want
[00:01:17] America to enter wars
[00:01:20] and they don't like
[00:01:23] to join these wars. Therefore,
[00:01:26] many of them have become disillusioned.
[00:02:00] Schools are among these plans, increasing cooperation
[00:02:03] with the Basij Organization and increasing the presence of military
[00:02:06] forces and military and ideological training for students. Farnoush Hamishahi
[00:02:10] says in her report that many
[00:02:14] consider these changes a violation of children's
[00:02:17] rights.
[00:02:20] We will die, we will not accept humiliation, holding
[00:02:24] a gun ready
[00:02:26] for battle. A student whose educational system.
[00:02:36] Training a generation that, according to the Minister of Education, will have the culture of martyrdom,
[00:02:39] sacrifice, and devotion to the system so that
[00:02:43] they can fight arrogance.
[00:02:47] The main battlefield
[00:02:50] of the enemy is the schools of our country,
[00:02:55] the minds of the youth and teenagers
[00:02:58] of our country.
[00:03:14] Among the new agreements of the Ministry of Education
[00:03:18] with the Basij for reorganizing the student Basij
[00:03:22] and more ideological and political cooperation after
[00:03:25] last year's memorandum of understanding with the police force, which
[00:03:29] caused many concerns about the securitization
[00:03:32] of schools.
[00:03:37] Now, the police and military forces have entered schools
[00:03:40] more than ever before. And working with weapons is
[00:03:43] on the serious agenda of schools. Based on
[00:03:47] the "Nomidan" plan, which was introduced with the participation of Basij,
[00:03:51] students at all levels are supposed to participate
[00:03:54] in three
[00:03:56] mother kept getting happier. As I have competitions. They will receive military training in the field of relief and.
[00:04:00] Critical thinking and media literacy for distinguishing
[00:04:03] the front of truth against falsehood will be taught in theory
[00:04:07] and practice
[00:04:07] courses.
[00:04:13] This plan is alongside the "Young Fighter" headquarters, also in
[00:04:16] cooperation with the Basij Organization. Students are taught
[00:04:20] that the main obstacle to the
[00:04:24] appearance of Israel is. The goal of this plan
[00:04:27] includes training in weapon handling, reconnaissance,
[00:04:31] and collecting public information in neighborhoods
[00:04:34] to identify infiltrators as well as
[00:04:37] "Rajs Khani" and crowd control
[00:04:39] in gatherings.
[00:04:47] Such as attending government night gatherings, which the Minister
[00:04:51] of Education said will be available to students
[00:04:55] every Wednesday. Critics consider the performance
[00:04:58] of the Ministry of Education to be against the UN
[00:05:02] Convention on the Rights of the Child, of which Iran is also a member.
[00:05:06] They say the duty of this ministry
[00:05:09] is to provide the groundwork for the scientific education of students.
[00:05:17] But the government has been trying for years to engrave
[00:05:21] its own values and narrative in the minds of
[00:05:23] students.
[00:05:30] And come, come, come, by turning teachers into propagandists
[00:05:33] and the presence of clerics
[00:05:37] in schools, and even holding maneuvers for confrontation in
[00:05:41] internal conflicts that have been pursued for several years,
[00:05:44] but the desired success of the government has not
[00:05:48] been achieved. I told them how to hold congregational
[00:05:51] prayers. The Imam of the congregation
[00:05:55] is written as their leader.
[00:05:59] Their leader stands in front of everyone.
[00:06:03] The Islamic Republic, especially after the Women, Life, Freedom
[00:06:07] movement, has tried to gain more control over
[00:06:10] schools.
[00:06:14] During the January protests, it became clear that the gap is deep. According
[00:06:17] to the Teachers' Syndicate, during those protests, at least
[00:06:21] 216 students were killed and hundreds
[00:06:25] were arrested.
[00:06:30] The new round of strictures has made homeschooling
[00:06:33] and private schools more
[00:06:35] popular.
[00:06:37] The result is families who, against the ideology
[00:06:41] of the government, have raised a generation
[00:06:44] that is far from the ideal student
[00:06:47] of the system. Farnoush Hameshah
[00:06:51] BBC.
[00:06:55] Ameneh Askari, researcher and child rights activist and representative
[00:06:58] of the non-profit organization Defenders of Children's
[00:07:01] Rights in Iran, is with us. Welcome to the program,
[00:07:05] Ms. Hassani. From the perspective of child rights, how should
[00:07:09] we view what we are seeing, these trainings that are being given in schools,
[00:07:13] especially after this war and the concern of another
[00:07:17] war breaking out? Hello to you
[00:07:20] and your viewers. Look,
[00:07:24] generally, when in
[00:07:28] the first stage, the Islamic Republic is trying to,
[00:07:31] as it is in their
[00:07:34] propaganda, restart a factory for producing
[00:07:38] Hossein Fahmidehs, the same thing that existed in the 1980s.
[00:07:42] But from the perspective of child rights, children's
[00:07:45] rights are violated at several stages
[00:07:49] and at several layers and levels. The first part
[00:07:52] is that Basij is generally
[00:07:56] part of the IRGC. As a result, when a child is, in fact,
[00:07:59] trained by the Basij force, it means they are under the command of the IRGC
[00:08:03] and Basij. This,
[00:08:07] according to the Paris Principles, completely defines
[00:08:10] child soldiers, even if
[00:08:17] it is a new field, even if all these children
[00:08:20] do not carry weapons. As a result,
[00:08:23] they are literally using children as child soldiers,
[00:08:27] which, according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as your
[00:08:31] colleague mentioned in the program, completely violates
[00:08:35] several provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In addition,
[00:08:38] we recognize four fundamental rights for children: the right to survival,
[00:08:42] development, participation, and protection. The presence of children
[00:08:46] in such circumstances, carrying weapons,
[00:08:49] violates all children's rights.
[00:08:53] That is, instead of surviving, instead of the right to survival,
[00:08:56] they are encouraging children to die.
[00:09:00] They are encouraging children to martyrdom, to the culture of martyrdom,
[00:09:03] and this is one of the fundamental rights
[00:09:06] of children. Protecting children is the same.
[00:09:09] Instead of protecting children, they are, in fact,
[00:09:12] putting them at risk. But as you said, this is
[00:09:15] both for the possibility of war
[00:09:19] and for the possibility of protests
[00:09:22] that may happen, so that children, as they used them
[00:09:25] in the Women, Life, Freedom uprising, will be used again
[00:09:29] in checkpoints, and because they know that
[00:09:33] people's behavior with children will be different,
[00:09:36] and they want to use this as well. Your advice to families
[00:09:40] who, after all, have to send their children to schools
[00:09:43] during wartime. Many might say that in wartime, these
[00:09:47] things might happen. We should go and see, for example,
[00:09:51] what the situation is like in Ukraine, and those of us who went to school
[00:09:54] in Iran in the 1980s remember well what
[00:09:58] happened to children in schools during
[00:10:02] that war. But
[00:10:05] what is your advice to families if they want to
[00:10:08] protect themselves from harm, especially psychological harm? Look,
[00:10:16] the psychological harm of using children,
[00:10:20] as I said, at each of these stages is very high. Children
[00:10:23] learn violence.
[00:10:26] Especially in the case of adolescents, because of their sense of belonging
[00:10:30] and identity formation, it is much
[00:10:33] more likely that they will
[00:10:36] become victims of brainwashing. But of course, we know that this program starts
[00:10:40] with children as young as seven years old. It targets children
[00:10:43] from 7 to 15 years old, in fact. Families must definitely stand
[00:10:47] against this. In addition, child rights defenders inside
[00:10:51] Iran, various other movements, this is really a disaster because,
[00:10:55] besides children being directly harmed
[00:10:58] and put at risk, the personality
[00:11:01] of children, their future, all of these are affected
[00:11:05] by this program. In addition, let's consider one very
[00:11:08] strange thing that was in this program, in their "Meydan No" program. There's
[00:11:12] weapon training, then first aid
[00:11:16] training for empowering children,
[00:11:19] they don't teach first aid to children for using children
[00:11:23] as child soldiers. They are doing this. As I said,
[00:11:27] a child soldier is not just a child who carries a weapon. A child
[00:11:30] who provides support, the same child who gathers information
[00:11:33] from the neighborhood, they are actually brainwashing children
[00:11:37] into espionage to use them. All of these fall
[00:11:40] under the definition of a child soldier. Another thing they had
[00:11:44] was critical thinking. They want to teach children
[00:11:48] critical and media thinking. We all know this is not true because
[00:11:51] these same children, if they really have critical thinking,
[00:11:55] are children, and we know a very large number of them
[00:11:58] were arrested during the January uprising
[00:12:01] and are still in detention. As a result,
[00:12:05] no part of this plan is positive or aims
[00:12:08] to empower children. It is 100%
[00:12:12] contradictory to all children's rights based on the Convention
[00:12:16] on the Rights of the Child, based on the fundamental rights of children that we
[00:12:20] discussed. We really must call on families and progressive
[00:12:23] movements inside Iran, just as we must strongly
[00:12:27] fight this plan outside Iran, contact truth-finding
[00:12:31] committees and various other bodies and provide them
[00:12:35] with the details of this plan. Families should absolutely not
[00:12:39] give in to this. We know that many schools
[00:12:43] have told them they will be given statues and will be honored
[00:12:46] if they do this. School principals will be honored.
[00:12:49] From these, in fact, encouragements that they will
[00:12:53] give to children, families must be very sensitive to this,
[00:12:57] and I really repeat, no part of this plan
[00:13:00] is empowering children to face the potential
[00:13:04] dangers of war. All of this is the use
[00:13:08] of children and the promotion of the culture of martyrdom,
[00:13:11] the promotion of the culture of death, in fact,
[00:13:14] which the Islamic Republic, in its 47 years
[00:13:18] of existence, has only done this for children. Thank you,
[00:13:20] Ameneh Askari, researcher and child rights activist, with
[00:13:24] me. The production of COVID-19 vaccines was a major
[00:13:28] scientific achievement, but many people around the world, including
[00:13:32] in Iran, were not able to benefit from this achievement in time. Now,
[00:13:35] a new policy brief by the United Nations
[00:13:39] University addresses the question of what should
[00:13:42] be done in future pandemics. According to the research of these
[00:13:46] researchers, if the global distribution of vaccines had started
[00:13:49] about 100 days after the genetic sequencing of the virus
[00:13:53] was determined, millions of deaths could have been prevented
[00:13:57] by the end of 2021. Now, many are
[00:14:00] calling for equitable access to vaccines from the design
[00:14:03] stage to financing,
[00:14:06] production, procurement, distribution, and transfer
[00:14:09] to be considered. Dr. Mahan Ghaffari, head of the Research
[00:14:13] Group on Molecular Evolution and Epidemiology of Emerging
[00:14:17] Pathogens at Oxford University, who has led this
[00:14:21] 3-year research program, is with us.
[00:14:24] Dr., what is your finding, perhaps
[00:14:27] a finding that you are very
[00:14:30] pleased with and think can be a guide for the
[00:14:34] future in this study?
[00:14:36] Thank you.
[00:14:38] Yes, the research you referred to was a multi-year
[00:14:42] collaboration that resulted in this policy brief
[00:14:46] that was published by the UN
[00:14:49] United Nations University's Institute for Water, Environment and Health.
[00:14:53] It was a collaboration with Professor Madani, who
[00:14:56] heads this organization at the United Nations,
[00:15:00] and was in fact a summary of several
[00:15:03] years of research that was specifically inspired by Iran,
[00:15:07] which is why we did this work.
[00:15:10] What was
[00:15:12] observed, specifically in the context
[00:15:16] of Iran and Iran's conditions, were issues
[00:15:19] that were much discussed. People may still remember
[00:15:23] from 6 years ago the issue of
[00:15:27] releasing data in a reliable and clear
[00:15:30] manner and reporting it to the people, which can be very
[00:15:34] helpful, and that is one of the points we mentioned.
[00:15:37] Another issue is protecting health decisions from
[00:15:41] political pressures, which again in the context of Iran,
[00:15:45] the prohibition of some vaccines could be considered
[00:15:48] part of these political pressures, as well as other
[00:15:52] issues such as the lack of transparency in potential conflicts
[00:15:55] of interest of researchers or those responsible
[00:15:59] for vaccine distribution, and finally, strengthening vaccine
[00:16:03] delivery to the people. The fact that some vaccines were mRNA vaccines
[00:16:06] that required a cold chain or sufficient
[00:16:10] personnel in different regions of Iran was not
[00:16:14] enough to deliver these vaccines. These were things that led
[00:16:17] me to believe that we should continue this work with the
[00:16:20] cooperation of several colleagues who were involved
[00:16:24] in this work, and finally, we will have another pandemic,
[00:16:28] and this pre-crisis preparedness is what
[00:16:32] led us to believe that before another, unfortunately,
[00:16:35] the reality is that a crisis,
[00:16:38] in fact, a global health crisis will occur, we
[00:16:42] can have this preparedness. After all,
[00:16:46] this vaccine came and
[00:16:48] many millions of people around the world used
[00:16:51] it, which also led to a climate of distrust.
[00:16:55] There are still people who believe that,
[00:16:58] for example, they have pain somewhere
[00:17:01] because they got the COVID vaccine at some point. Now, for
[00:17:05] different people, it's different.
[00:17:09] What can be done about this distrust, and
[00:17:13] how much negative impact might this
[00:17:16] have in future pandemics? Yes,
[00:17:20] in my opinion, perhaps this was one of the bitterest
[00:17:23] consequences of the کرونا era. My concern is that
[00:17:27] some or many may have a distorted narrative
[00:17:30] of what happened, that the pandemic itself
[00:17:34] was a lie, and that vaccines killed more people.
[00:17:37] And unfortunately, none of these claims are consistent
[00:17:41] with scientific evidence in any way, and if
[00:17:45] these are going to be things that remain in people's minds
[00:17:49] about the next pandemic and the effects of vaccines,
[00:17:52] then it can have extensive negative consequences. Of course,
[00:17:56] people's concerns about vaccination and vaccines
[00:17:59] should not be taken lightly, and our intention in this
[00:18:02] research was not that at all, and in fact, precisely
[00:18:06] one of our main emphases is on transparency in reporting
[00:18:09] and accurate transparency of this data to prevent
[00:18:13] fueling speculation that individuals may
[00:18:16] have, or of course, much of it is very systematic
[00:18:20] with regard to vaccination. It can respond to these
[00:18:24] doubts with transparency. And the second mechanism that I think
[00:18:28] is very important, again in the context of Iran,
[00:18:31] is that independent institutions
[00:18:34] that work on vaccine evaluation should, in fact,
[00:18:37] be given a voice. They should be given the opportunity
[00:18:41] and the mechanism that should be provided
[00:18:44] to them to be able to do this work
[00:18:48] with a focus on scientific issues, and this is
[00:18:52] a bigger thing, it goes back to the health
[00:18:56] policies of that country, which, again, in the context
[00:18:59] of Iran, requires a separate discussion. So what
[00:19:03] recommendations did you make in this study? Part of it
[00:19:09] for countries and also for the United Nations to make
[00:19:12] available to countries for
[00:19:15] next times. Yes, I said there were six
[00:19:19] points, and I mentioned three or four of them.
[00:19:22] Some things are specific to Iran, which is why
[00:19:26] I was focusing on that aspect in my speech. But some
[00:19:29] things are also much broader than the discussion about Iran.
[00:19:33] We really saw how much faster vaccination happened
[00:19:37] in high-income countries, and our research and much
[00:19:40] other research has shown how much this acceleration
[00:19:44] and equitable delivery of vaccines to places where vulnerable
[00:19:47] individuals can be very affected and have a higher
[00:19:50] risk of death can prevent that. And one of our recommendations
[00:19:54] was specifically for equitable distribution of
[00:19:58] vaccines among countries that is based
[00:20:01] on health priority, not
[00:20:04] the income level of countries, and well, regarding.
[00:20:11] There is something that is new regarding COVID,
[00:20:14] the COVAX mechanism that emerged was much better than before,
[00:20:18] because before the pandemic, this process of equitable distribution
[00:20:21] happened much slower. In fact, COVAX was a great success.
[00:20:24] At the same time, we also examined challenges related
[00:20:28] to this mechanism and proposed practical solutions
[00:20:32] that can help in the next pandemic
[00:20:35] between countries and within countries to faster and
[00:20:39] equitable distribution, specifically regarding vaccines. And regarding
[00:20:43] Iran, of course, some political issues
[00:20:46] were also raised here, including that American vaccines will
[00:20:50] not be imported and so on. I think you also addressed this issue.
[00:20:54] Yes, specifically, as
[00:20:57] I said, in the discussion of protecting health
[00:21:00] decisions from political pressure, it
[00:21:04] is a mechanism that is very important to happen from the very beginning.
[00:21:08] It happened specifically in Iran, but it also happened
[00:21:12] in a different way in the US and in other countries.
[00:21:15] And again here, the mechanisms we recommended regarding
[00:21:19] independent bodies, transparency of conflicts of interest,
[00:21:23] again, these are things that can help prevent
[00:21:26] these issues from causing delays in equitable vaccine distribution