Iran Hardliners Signal Tougher Position, Crackdown On Unrest
The hardliner government in Tehran is signalling its readiness to get even tougher with protesters, who have come out every single day in the past six weeks.
The hardliner government in Tehran is signalling its readiness to get even tougher with protesters, who have come out every single day in the past six weeks.
The Iranian government’s official mouthpiece, Iran newspaper, which is owned by the administration of President Ebrahim Raisi, warned Iranians October 27 that security forces are going to get even tougher, while at least 270 protesters have already been killed.
In a commentary entitled “The end of Toleration,” the daily said after the attack on the Shah Cheragh Shrine in Shiraz, the regime will no longer tolerate any protests. This comes while the government has attributed the attack on the shrine to the Islamic State (ISIS) with which the protesters have not shown any sympathy and have likened the regime to ISIS terrorists.
Iran newspaper charged that it was the protests that has encouraged ISIS to undermine Iran’s security.
In a similar stance, hardliner member of the Iranian Parliament Esmaili Kowsari, said in Tehran that the officials are tasking new decisions about how to tackle the ongoing unrest and warned, “You will see that the situation will be different from previous days.”
Kowsari said on Iranian state television on Thursday: “Perhaps the rioters can still scare the businesses like they did on the previous days, but they can never attract the sympathy and support of many Iranians.” He further warned that officials are making new decisions about encountering what he called “riots”.
The hardliner lawmaker who is a senior officer of the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and was previously in charge of Tehran’s security for over a decade, claimed that “compared to the protests in 2019 that followed a sudden fuel price rise, there are fewer protesters in the streets and the protests are generally less intense.”
He warned the protesters while referring to the attack in Shiraz that “foreign countries whose hybrid war in Iran has not been fruitful, have turned to terrorism in order to scare Iranians.” Kowsari made the comment while most Iranians on social media believe, based on previous experience, that the government was behind the attack with the aim of derailing the protests.
Stressing that the government will change its approach, Kowsari said that so far it hoped the people would realise that their slogans were not true. Most slogans chanted by protesters vehemently rejected Khamenei and the Islamic regime. Meanwhile Kowsari accused foreign countries of being behind the ongoing uprising and promised to deal with those countries.
On Friday, prayer Imams in various cities, who are directly appointed by Khamenei, called on the security forces to adopt tougher measures against the protesters. Mohammad Javad Haj Ali Akbari, the imam in Tehran vowed to take revenge from the perpetrators of the attack on the shrine in Shiraz and blamed the United States and Israel for the blood spilled in Shiraz. He said in a controversial statement: “The United States is the same as the Islamic States. Only it wears perfume.”
He said the attack in Shiraz took place because the demonstrators had played with the country’s security and warned that no one can do that any longer. Haj Ali Akbari said: “We blame the United States and Israel for all the bloodshed and promise to take revenge for them.”
The Imam in Isfahan, Abolhassan Mahdavi, claimed that regime’s security forces attack the women among the protesters because Western countries encourage them not to wear hijab. He further claimed that wearing hijab will cleanse the society.
The Friday Imam of Isfahan further charged that protesters have received money from foreigners to undermine the importance of hijab. He called on the police and other security forces as well as the judiciary to forcefully deal with those who are against hijab. He charged that not having hijab is tantamount to prostitution.
The Islamic Republic’s Intelligence Ministry and the Intelligence Organization of the Revolutionary Guard issued the statement on Friday, alleging that a mission called “Iran’s Destruction Project” that was earlier implemented in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Libya has ended in a “humiliating defeat” in Iran.
The joint statement has introduced Niloufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, twp women journalists arrested days after protests began in September, as “foreign agents.”
They say that Niloufar Hamedi, who published the photo of the deceased Mahsa Amini on a hospital bed, was “among the people trained in special courses abroad.” Amini’s death from severe head trauma in police custody triggered the current popular protests across the country. The unrest has been the longest sustained movement against the Islamic Republic.
“Using the cover of a journalist, she was one of the first people who arrived at the hospital and provoked the relatives of the deceased and published targeted news,” adds the statement.
The statement has offered no evidence about the two journalists having travelled abroad, received training or having any ties with foreign organizations.
The ominous statement came as several Iranian hardliners Friday signaled that the government will resort to more force to crush the popular protests.
The IRGC and the Intelligence Ministry have also accused Elahe Mohammadi, another journalist of working for foreign services saying that “she instantly attended the funeral ceremony of Mahsa Amini in her birthplace Saqqez to provoke her relatives by circulating the news and images of the funeral ceremony, and burial.”
The two intelligence bodies also claimed that Mohammadi is “trained by the American mafia regime in foreign countries,” adding that together with Niloufar Hamedi, Mohammadi has “played the role of primary sources of news for foreign media.”
In this statement the Iranian intelligence organizations accused Washington of allocating billions of dollars every year to find elements in Iran and connect them to “Western networks under the cover of human rights activities and promotion of democracy.”
The statement claims that after the downing of a Ukrainian plane over Tehran in January 2020 and the collapse of Abadan’s Metropol building “incidents”, US agents “urged their media to use every challenge and problem to provoke an inefficiency crisis [in Iran] and focus on the illegitimacy of the Iranian establishment.”
The IRGC and Intelligence Ministry say the United States tried “to attribute the effect of sanctions on people’s lives to the inefficiency of the Islamic Republic through making false demands in cultural and social fields.”
The statement further claims that in the past years, US and Israeli intelligence services have made extensive efforts to “transfer money and arm criminals with weapons to enable them to carry out sabotage operations against important centers and facilities, and use violence against the civilians, police forces and the Basij [militia].”
It also adds that “enemy’s” intelligence services try to influence teachers, workers, and students through “creation of fake syndicates and leaders” to “cause chaos” in the country.
The intelligence bodies further stated that “enemies” organized and implemented a “global media war” against Iran, through TV networks and social media.
It accuses Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram of “ignoring their own regulations” to pave the ground for the spread of “fake news.”
Referring to the measures taken by the US government to provide free satellite internet for the Iranian people, they said “The Starlink project is to expand America’s internet dictatorship!”
In the end, the statement has once again threatened the “enemies” saying that their “crimes in recent events will not be forgotten or forgiven.”
"A bombing in Mo'ali Abad Street in Shiraz was detected and foiled by the Revolutionary Guards intelligence," Sepah news said, without giving further details.
There is no possibility to verify IRGC's claim, as the ideological-military-business organization and also Iran's Intelligence Ministry in the past have made numerous similar claims without presenting any evidence. In most cases no public trial of suspects were held or even names released.
The IRGC-linked Fars News quoted “an informed security source in Shiraz” as saying that the remotely-controlled bomb was found and neutralized by security forces and intelligence ministry agents after the gun attack on Shahcheragh shrine.
Wednesday's shooting, which was claimed by the Islamic State (ISIS) group, killed 15 including children and injured dozens more at the Shahcheragh shrine. Officials said they had arrested a gunman who carried out the attack at the shrine. The attack took place amid widespread antigovernment protests across the country which began nearly two months ago following the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, on September 16.
The Iranian government has organized nationwide demonstrations against the shooting following Friday prayers. Funerals were also due to take place for the victims. Officials said they had arrested a gunman who carried out the attack at the shrine.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei vowed on Thursday to retaliate against those threatening the country's security without further elaboration as to whether this meant those responsible for the attack, protesters, or both.
"We will take revenge for the blood of the martyrs of Shiraz," said Tehran Friday prayer Imam Haj Ali Akbari about the attack on the shrine.
Many Iranians did not trust the authorities or believe that ISIS was responsible for the attack. They accuse the regime of being behind the attack or orchestrating it to blame protesters at home for causing unrest and insecurity and justify harsher crackdown against opponents.