An Iranian lady who misplaced her eye after she was shot by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in the course of the “Girl, Life, Freedom” protests in 2022 is slamming former Vice President Kamala Harris over her response to the bombings in Iran.
Mersedeh Shahinkar, a mom and activist dwelling in California, nonetheless carries the scars of the Islamic Republic’s crackdown on anti-government demonstrations.
Talking with the California Put up, Shahinkar weighed in on fellow activist Masih Alinejad’s current Fox Information interview, the place Alinejad blasted Harris for criticizing President Donald Trump over the lethal US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
“I’m bored with seeing some politicians right here in America, particularly Democrats, making this about their very own politics, scoring political factors like Kamala Harris,” Alinejad lashed out.
Final weekend, Harris issued a press release describing the assault as “a struggle the American folks don’t need” after Iran’s Supreme Chief Ali Khamenei was killed in his fortified compound together with 40 prime safety and regime officers.
“Let me be clear: I’m against a regime-change struggle in Iran, and our troops are being put in hurt’s approach for the sake of Trump’s struggle of selection,” Harris wrote.
Shahinkar mentioned many Iranians really feel Western politicians have repeatedly didn’t assist the nation’s pro-democracy motion.
“For a few years, we tried peaceable and democratic methods to demand change, or at the very least reform,” Shahinkar mentioned.
She added these had been the identical strategies Western politicians typically urge activists to pursue.
“The identical strategies that some members of the Democratic Get together and leftists at the moment are educating us,” she continued.
“However I ask them: The place had been you?”
Shahinkar pointed to mass protests that swept Iran earlier this 12 months.
“The place had been you when greater than 30,000 folks had been slaughtered in early 2026, when tens of millions of individuals went to peaceable protests with their kids in 300 cities throughout Iran?” she mentioned.
These demonstrations, she famous, had been referred to as by exiled Iranian opposition determine Reza Pahlavi —including that members of the Iranian diaspora tried to attract consideration to the unrest.
“Since January 8, we within the Iranian diaspora have left hundreds of feedback and messages on their accounts,” Shahinkar mentioned, referring to Kamala Harris and former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
“We respectfully begged them to lift their voices for harmless kids and younger folks whose web entry was reduce off by the regime.”
Shahinkar mentioned these appeals had been largely ignored.
“They didn’t even say a phrase of sympathy to take care of their masks of humanity,” she defined.
“Each time we see a flash, a glimmer of hope of individuals eager for freedom, I feel we now have to level it out. We’ve got to shine a highlight on it. We’ve got to precise some solidarity about it,” added Shahinkar.
Later within the interview, she addressed Western anti-war messaging.
“Sure, ‘No Warfare’ is an efficient slogan,” she mentioned. “Nobody loves struggle on this planet.”
However she argued the slogan overlooks the violence Iranians expertise beneath the regime.
“The place had been you once we had been shot in our eyes and faces?” she mentioned.
“Once they lashed us, harassed us, and tortured us?”
Shahinkar mentioned peaceable protests have repeatedly been met with harsher crackdowns.
“Each time we used democratic strategies, the consequence was solely stronger repression, extreme slaughter, and extra executions,” she mentioned.
She additionally warned in regards to the penalties of a closely armed Iranian regime.
“Think about the brutality we now have endured from a regime that opens hearth with dwell ammunition by itself unarmed youth,” Shahinkar mentioned.
“If such a regime obtains nuclear weapons or long-range missiles, what wouldn’t it do to you and to different nations on this planet?”
She famous the Iranian authorities regularly makes use of hostile rhetoric towards different nations.
“These are nations to which the regime always sends chants of demise,” she mentioned.
For Shahinkar and lots of within the Iranian diaspora, the talk is not only geopolitical.
“Think about a regime that kills tens of hundreds of its personal folks in a matter of days,” she mentioned.
“For a lot of Iranians, what is going on now isn’t seen as struggle — however as rescue.”
