Iran is a young nation. Half of the population are 35 or younger. Many are are college educated and they don’t offer gender studies there. Inflation and unemployment are at around 12%. The promised economic benefits of the nuclear deal so far have not materialized. Most Iranians don’t give a fuck about Syria or Palestine (or Islam, for that matter). They know their country should be economically prosperous and are running out of patience.
Price protests turn political in Iran as rallies spread
DUBAI (Reuters) – Demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans in several cities across Iran on Friday, Iranian news agencies and social media reports said, as price protests turned into the largest wave of demonstrations since nationwide pro-reform unrest in 2009.
Police dispersed anti-government demonstrators in the western city of Kermanshah as protests spread to Tehran and several other cities a day after rallies in the northeast, the semi-official news agency Fars said.
The outbreak of unrest reflects growing discontent over rising prices and alleged corruption, as well as concern about the Islamic Republic’s costly involvement in regional conflicts such as those in Syria and Iraq.
An official said a few protesters had been arrested in Tehran, and footage posted on social media showed a heavy police presence in the capital and some other cities.
Washington criticized the arrests. “The United States strongly condemns the arrest of peaceful protesters. We urge all nations to publicly support the Iranian people and their demands for basic rights and an end to corruption,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement.
About 300 demonstrators gathered in Kermanshah after what Fars said was a “call by the anti-revolution”. They shouted: “Political prisoners should be freed” and “Freedom or death”, and some public property was destroyed. Fars did not name any opposition groups.
The protests in Kermanshah, the main city in a region where an earthquake killed over 600 people in November, took place a day after hundreds rallied in Iran’s second largest city Mashhad to protest at high prices and shout anti-government slogans.
Videos posted on social media showed demonstrators yelling, “The people are begging, the clerics act like God”.
Fars said there were protests in the cities of Sari and Rasht in the north, Qazvin west of Tehran and Qom south of the capital, and also in Hamadan in western Iran. It said many marchers who wanted to raise economic demands left the rallies after demonstrators shouted political slogans.
PRO-GOVERNMENT RALLIES PLANNED
State television said annual nationwide rallies and events were scheduled for Saturday to commemorate pro-government demonstrations held in 2009 to counter protests by reformists.
The Revolutionary Guards, which along with its Basij militia spearheaded a crackdown against the protesters in 2009, said in a statement carried by state media that there were efforts to repeat that year’s unrest but added: “The Iranian nation … will not allow the country to be hurt.”
Mohsen Nasj Hamadani, deputy security chief in Tehran province, said about 50 people had rallied in a square but most had left after being asked to by police, while a few who refused were “temporarily detained”, the ILNA news agency reported.
In the central city of Isfahan, a resident said protesters had joined a rally held by factory workers demanding back-pay.
“The slogans quickly changed from the economy to those against (President Hassan) Rouhani and the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei),” the resident said by telephone.
In Qom, a stronghold of the Shi‘ite clergy, footage posted on social media showed protesters attacking Ayatollah Khamenei by name. “Seyyed Ali should be ashamed and leave the country alone,” they chanted.
Protests were held also in the town of Quchan near the Turkmen border, and in Ahvaz, capital of oil-rich Khuzestan province, social media and Iranian news websites reported.
Police arrested 52 people in Thursday’s protests, Fars quoted a judicial official as saying in Mashhad, one of the holiest places in Shi‘ite Islam.
In social media footage, which could not be authenticated, riot police were seen using water cannon and tear gas to disperse crowds.
Openly political protests are rare in Iran, where security services are omnipresent.
The last unrest of national significance occurred in 2009 when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election as president ignited eight months of street protests. Pro-reform rivals said the vote was rigged.
However, demonstrations are often held by workers over lay-offs or non-payment of salaries and by people who hold deposits in non-regulated, bankrupt financial institutions.
Prominent conservative cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda called earlier for tough action against the protests.
“If the security and law enforcement agencies leave the rioters to themselves, enemies will publish films and pictures in their media and say that the Islamic Republic system has lost its revolutionary base in Mashhad,” the state news agency IRNA quoted Alamolhoda as saying.
“DEATH TO DICTATOR”
Some social media videos showed demonstrators chanting “Death to Rouhani” and “Death to the dictator”. Protests were also held in at least two other northeastern cities.
Alamolhoda, the representative of Ayatollah Khamenei in Mashhad, said a few people had taken advantage of Thursday’s protests against rising prices to chant slogans against Iran’s role in regional conflicts.
Tehran backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his country’s civil war, Shi‘ite militias in Iraq, Houthi rebels in Yemen and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah group.
“Some people had come to express their demands, but suddenly, in a crowd of hundreds, a small group that did not exceed 50 shouted deviant and horrendous slogans such as ‘Let go of Palestine’, ‘Not Gaza, not Lebanon, I’d give my life (only) for Iran’,” Alamolhoda said.
Social media videos also showed demonstrators chanting ”Leave Syria, think about us”, criticizing Iran’s military and financial support for Assad.
Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri, a close Rouhani ally, suggested that hardline conservative opponents of the pragmatist president might have triggered the protests but lost control of them. “Those who are behind such events will burn their own fingers,” IRNA quoted Jahangiri as saying.
Rouhani’s leading achievement, a 2015 deal with world powers that curbed Iran’s disputed nuclear program in return for a lifting of most international sanctions, has yet to bring the broad economic benefits the government says are coming.
Unemployment stood at 12.4 percent in this fiscal year, according to the Statistical Centre of Iran, up 1.4 percent from the previous year. About 3.2 million Iranians are jobless, out of a total population of 80 million.
(In 5th paragraph, adds attribution at end of quote to show from U.S. State Department.)
Reporting by Dubai newsroom; additional reporting by Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Gareth Jones and Andrew Hay
I don’t think the protesters will get away with anything serious. They’ll be suppressed like last time. I say that based on my experience of never having been there. (Actually my lib brother has been to most of those countries and it doesn’t augment his insight in the least.) As long as most people believe in the authority of the Supreme Ayatollah (and I think they do) any uprising is doomed.
I think it depends on how the government reacts. If it is too harsh, it will provoke a backlash, but if is too lenient then it will be perceived as weak and vulnerable. Right now the protests are a very minor affair and do not appear to be well organized. I think it’s worth paying attention to, though.
T4C,
I agree not to read too much into today’s events. The whole Persia vs. Arab thing exists mainly in the minds of small dicked Saudi troublemakers. Iranians are highly nationalistic and thus inward oriented. Most don’t give a fuck about the Arab world. The same is true with the Shia vs. Sunni thing which is really an excuse for tribal feuds that have little basis in religion.
A warning. Do not listen to dissident Iranian groups, especially Miryam Rajavi who leads the MEK. They have their own ambitions and have zero support within the Iranian nation. In 2009 Obama did exactly the right thing, which was nothing. 2009 was not the time for an Iranian revolution. I don’t know if 2018 will be either but I do know for absolute certainty that all the US could do by intervening is to fuck it up. We must allow the Iranian people to sort out their affairs by themselves.
PS, Anyone who thinks a secular Iranian republic will be Israel’s bitch are delusional. Secular or not, Iran will remain on our shit list as long as our foreign policy is made in Jerusalem.
The American People are confused. America has an increasingly
poor reputation as a result of meddling and ultimately bombing
other nations. Warning: Keep out of Iran.
We could be having “protests” in this country. The left, together
with gov/corps and their one world BS…are destroying (looting)
the US and they have been unfettered. It is possible that Trump
will rain on their parade. We hope so anyway.
Many people I see are wildly overweight. I don’t begrudge them
their salty/sweet snacks, but I do moan for their coming illnesses.
I would rather focus on gov “weather manipulation”/spraying
chemicals, their shitting in our water, and poisoning our food. And
the Fed? IMHO, “we” owe them nothing. In fact, they owe us
many times over. Did we mention drug epidemics? May I say,
“those bastards”? Immunization? I think we are heading into
a social cataclysm. I hope the guilty parties are punished for their
repeated demonstration of wallowing in the 7 deadly sins. The end.
BTW, great comments and questions gentlemen.
I would guess that these protests were “inspired” via some cash from the CIA’s black budget. The Ayatollah will put a stop to it like the Chinks did in ’89.
While the Persians probably haven’t developed their own nukes yet, they do have significant oil money. A certain fat boy on the Korean peninsula has nukes, but no money. The two seem to be ripe to become trading partners. That’s likely the real threat.
And remember, it was the Persians who slayed the original Babylon. Could history repeat?
Right on, 100%
I don’t hate the Iranian people. I rather like them. They seek the freedom of Western civilization. They don’t wish to be be beaten for dancing to a Western song. Their authoritarian system seems to be cracking.. which is all well.. I hope that they survive the strict Iranian neo-cons…
“The United States strongly condemns the arrest of peaceful protesters. We urge all nations to publicly support the Iranian people and their demands for basic rights and an end to corruption,”
The cheek of it. Look in the mirror much?
What “peaceful” protesters does the United States arrest?
And how many of them in total?
Those questions came from my mirror when I looked in it.
Suggest you tell that to LaVoy Finicum’s family and friends.
THE FOURTH TURNING ARRIVES IN IRAN
Strauss and Howe say.. “Ayatollah so!”
Anti-government protests on the third day have spread to dozens of cities countrywide. In some places, the demonstrators are attacking cops, in other ones they are pleading to the cops to join them. Students at Tehran University (Iran’s Harvard and MIT rolled into one) chant, “We don’t want a government based on force.” (dont they know there is no other kind? lol)
This is serious shit now. Probably bigger than 2009. We could be witnessing the beginning of something historic.
#Iranprotests
A Basiji paramilitary morality cop resigns. His note says, “I will not raise a baton against the #Iranian nation. Your Basiji brother. No to cruelty. Enough is Enough.”
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