Iran International
Protesters who flocked to Tehran’s Grand Bazaar area Saturday chanted against poverty, corruption and the ever-increasing cost of living, amid bad economic news.
In response to an online call to protest at the Grand Bazaar, crowds formed in the area around noontime despite massive intervention of security forces, both male and female, and plainclothes agents who had stationed themselves in large numbers in various locations to prevent protesters from congregating in any one place.
“Poverty, corruption, unaffordable prices, We will go on until toppling [the regime]”, protesters chanted while security forces tried to disperse them violently. Videos posted on social media show protesters and onlookers booing security forces and shouting “Scoundrels, scoundrels” at them.
Chanting began as did the firing of tear gas, shooting of plastic bullets, beatings with batons, and many random arrests by security forces when numbers grew big enough around the Grand Bazaar, a maze of corridors running over 10 km in the heart of the capital with several entrances.
People chanting “Poverty, corruption, unaffordable prices” and vowing to topple the regime at Tehran Grand Bazaar area.
Shops in several of the corridors, including the goldsmith’s lane, and a large shopping mall in the heart of the bazaar and adjacent streets closed when protests began outside.
Inflation is currently hovering around 50 percent. In the past few days this week rial has further depreciatedagainst the dollar and other major currencies, pushing up prices for many basic commodities. The dollar rose to an unprecedented high of 440,000 rials earlier this week, forcing the Central Bank of Iran governor Ali Salehabadi to resign. The new governor, Mohammad-Reza Farzin vowed to strengthen the rial again, and intervened on Saturday with some success.
On Saturday employees of several large companies, including the oil refinery in Abadan in the oil-rich Khuzestan Province and another one in Arak Iran, staged strikes in protest to low salaries and wages and in Rasht, capital of the northern province of Gilan shops closed in protest to the government.
People running from security forces in bazaar area.
Videos posted on social media show female students who took to the street in Najafabad, a very conservative city of around 300,000 in Esfahan Province, also chanting against the government for poverty and corruption which they said would only end when the regime is toppled. “This homeland will not thrive before the [ruling] mullahs are dead!”, protesters chantedwho also accused the government of sending Iran's “dollars” to Lebanon while putting the youth in prison at home.
Meanwhile, in the Kurdish city of Javanrud, the third-largest city in the western Kermanshah Province, unrest that began Saturday morning escalated after security forces shot and killed a 22-year-old protester, Borhan Eliasi, in clashes with protesters who were trying to convene to hold memorials for seven others who had been killed forty days earlier during a spate of protests in Kurdish cities in late November.
Several others were shot and injured in Javanrud where people barricaded the streets Saturday morning when they were attacked. Angry protesters later stormed and ransacked two government banks, Keshavarzi and Sepah, and burned a road checkpoint kiosk.
Eliasi was buried a few hours later with thousands attending the burial ceremony at a nearby village cemetery. “We’re children of fire and blood, We will take revenge for our martyr”, participants chanted in Kurdish.
Elsewhere, in the restive city of Samirom, also in Esfahan Province, a large crowd gathered in front of the local governor’s office and protested while calling him “Daish-minded”. Protesters also chanted “Death to Khamenei”. On Thursday thousands had marched from the city to a cemetery in the snowy countryside to honor the memory of a young protester, Ali Abbasi, who was shot dead by security forces inn November.
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Several cities in the province of Sistan-Baluchestan, where most Sunni Baluch people live, were scenes of protests against the Islamic Republic on Friday while the regime also organized pro-government rallies in many cities across the country.
This was the 13th consecutive Friday that people in the Sunni-majority cities such as the provincial capital Zahedan and Khash held gatherings and chanted slogans against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard. As usual people poured into streets following Friday prayers.
Mowlavi Abdolhamid, the top religious leader of the Sunni Baluch, led the Friday prayer in Zahedan, and during his sermon criticized the regime’s arrest, sentencing and killing of children.
Elsewhere in his sermons, Abdolhamid debunked the Islamic Republic’s accusation of separatists among the protesters in Sistan and Baluchistan, saying that "We are staunch opponents of separatism. Baluch, Kurd, Arab, Persian, Turk, Turkmen, Lor, Gilak and all other ethnic groups are against separatism.” “All Iranians are one and together. Today, Iran smells of love," he added.
"We sympathize with all Iranians and all Iranians are dear to us; Muslims and non-Muslims, we must respect human rights and humanity. Jews, Christians, Baha'is and others should enjoy human rights. The law has not taken away the nationality of any person; even if he does not accept God," he said.
Pointing out that Baha'is are being persecuted by the Islamic Republic, Abdolhamid called for respect for the rights of "all Iranian citizens." Touching on the issue of apostasy verdicts for the Baha'is, he said that "The new generation of Baha’is were not Muslims who wanted to divert from Islam. They were born non-Muslims so they cannot be sentenced to apostasy."
Fereydun Vahman, Professor Emeritus at Copenhagen University, in an interview with International Friday praised Abdolhamid’s remarks and said he is a rare unifying force among Iran’s religious figures. He also hailed his ideas about equality of women and men as well as the equal rights for Baha’is.
Contrary to the Sunni cleric, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representatives who led Friday prayers across the country, tried to focus on the pro-government commemorations, known in the state media as the occasion of “Day 9 Epic”, the ninth day of the Persian calendar month of Day, which falls on December 30.
Another issue discussed by Khamenei’s representatives – the so-called Friday prayer leaders – was the third death anniversary of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the former commander IRGC’s extraterritorial Quds Force. On January 3, 2020, the United States killed Soleimani, as well as the deputy commander of Iraq's popular mobilization units, Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis, in a drone strike near Baghdad International Airport.
The contents of Friday Prayer sermons delivered by clerics appointed by Khamenei in various cities are dictated by two state bodies reporting to his office, officially known as "The Policy-making Council for Friday Prayer Imams" and the "Friday Prayer Headquarters," both dominated by hardliner clerics.
Firebrand Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami, a member of the Guardian Council, claimed that the Islamic Republic is “invincible,” saying that “dictators want to achieve their goals under the guise of democracy and the defense of women's rights and freedom." He added that the US’ intention to liberate women is to enslave them.
He also described the current wave of protests – which he calls riots – as the deepest conspiracy facing the regime. "In the events, for the first time, the Supreme Leader was insulted, which is actually insulting religion.” Khatami was referring to derogatory slogans chanted by protesters against Khamenei, that anger his religious followers.
The Association of Iranian Journalists expressed concern on Thursday that the administration of President Ebrahim Raisi is coordinating with the parliament to secretly pass bills that would restrict the activities of citizen journalists and criminalize any reporting deemed critical of the regime.
The plan that the members of parliament are pushing forward is cunningly titled “legal and judicial action against the spread of fake news in cyberspace” and the administration is simultaneously devising a bill called “the comprehensive bill of journalism.”
The association claims that they have not released the full texts, noting that by keeping regulations hidden from experts and journalists, they seek to prevent others from critiquing the measures.
Since there is no due process of law in Iranian courts for political trials, the government would be free to categorize even a simple tweet as a criminal act and issue a harsh verdict.
Culture Minister Mohammad Mehdi Esmaeili earlier announced that the bill had been approved by the government's cultural committee and would be sent to the parliament after the cabinet's review.
In its statement, the association of journalists described the measures as “in line with the intensification of restrictions on the flow of information in professional media and cyber sphere,” adding that they violate the rights and freedom of journalists.
The parliament is trying to pass the new plan as part of regulations that would enable the authorities to execute anyone who speaks or sends images to foreign media outlets. Since the current wave of protests began following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, the authorities have been trying to restrict the spread of information both within the country and from inside the country to the international community.
The plan “to intensify the punishment of collaborators with the actions of hostile countries against national security and interests” describes any cooperation with “hostile countries, including the US government” as espionage. It considers any such cooperation as “corruption on earth,” which is punishable by death according to the Islamic Republic's Penal Code.
According to Article 286 of the Constitution, any serious disturbance in the public order, causing insecurity or major damage to people or public and private property, or spread of corruption or prostitution on a large scale, is considered a ‘corruption on earth’ offense and will lead to a death sentence.
Mobile phones and the Internet made it possible for citizens to record acts of violence and brutality by security forces, which was not possible two decades ago. This has exposed violations of citizens’ rights and has worried the Islamic Republic. A committee, comprised of representatives from Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Intelligence Ministry, Army and parliament’s National Security Committee, is tasked with determining those who are subject to the new law.
When finalized, the legislation would help the hardliner Judiciary to issue death sentences for anyone contacting foreign-based media. Not that the regime does have any reservations about issuing harsh verdicts to the protesters.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said on Thursday that a court in the North Khorasan province has issued a one-year sentence for 40 people arrested during protests on charges of "propaganda against the regime and spreading lies". According to HRANA, some of the convicted people are juveniles, adding that their average age is between 16 and 20 years old.
The regime has already been describing the realities on the ground as “lies” and “conspiracies” instigated by foreign countries, but the new regulations would give them extra pretexts to prosecute citizens and journalists.
This was the question Etemad newspaper in Tehran asked its readers on December 28.
"We were all watching everything, and sociologists had warned us of the looming wave of protests. How could we miss such a big event? Etemad asked.
Many analysts as well as ordinary Iranians believe it was Mahsa Amini's death in ‘morality police’ custody that triggered the protests in mid-September, which still continue after three months.
Others, particularly Iranian reformists say the trigger was pulled long before when the firebrand Friday imam in Mashhad escalated his hard-line rhetoric in support of compulsory hijab and charged that those who opposed strict measures against bad-hijab women were fighting the holy prophet.
Alamolhoda was earlier accused of instigating the nationwide protest in December 2017 by provoking the people to stand against then-president Hassan Rouhani's economic policies. That protest went on for a couple of weeks in more than 85 cities, but the wave receded silently to rise once again louder and more widely in November 2019 in more than 100 cities.
Although Mahsa Amini, the young woman who was visiting Tehran where she was arrested, was an ordinary person, and Alamolhoda is one of the most powerful individuals in the ruling circles, observers say both were equally instrumental in bringing about the current wave of protests although they belonged to different extremes in the Iranian society.
Alamolhoda was later questioned by the Supreme Council of National Security for his role in the unrest, but he said he had no intention of provoking the people.
However, there was one sociologist in Iran in addition to dissidents who were predicting large-scale protests to the existing political, social repression and economic hardship.
Apparently, no one read Mohsen Goudarzi's Nov. 2020 article, Rebellious Citizen in Andisheh Pouya [Dynamic Thought] magazine. He had referred to continuous small protests by teachers, factory workers and retirees following the 2017 re-election of Rouhani. He argued that protests were taking place particularly in the provinces where the turnout and political participation were at their lowest.
The gunpowder barrel was there and was rolling toward the fire, but no one else saw it. The government, like always, attributed the protests to foreign powers and its only response was a harsh crackdown. In the meantime, reformists did nothing more than teasing the government for failing to keep everyone happy.
Goudarzi's hypothesis that was based on keen observation of political movements in Iran was also valid about 2021 that brought Ebrahim Raisi to power with even a lower turnout in large parts of the country.
The hardliners who won the parliament in a low-turnout election in 2020 and the presidency a year later, just cared about monopolizing power, not political participation.
"Nearly in all of those areas there were accrued dissatisfaction about draught and unemployment among other things to which the government reacted by using violence that often led to protesters' death," observed Goudarzi.
Another Iranian sociologist, Asef Bayat, later observed that a new class of poor people has emerged in Iran, adding that unlike the protests in 2009 that was led by the middle class, the protests in 2018 and 2019 were steered by the poor city dwellers who have been left to their own devices by the government.
The government is still in denial of the protests and calls them riots instigated by foreigners and vows to crash them violently as Raisi said on December 27. No one in the government appears to have listened to Goudarzi and other sociologists, and as Goudarzi has said himself, they refuse to accept that although protests may recede at times, but they will definitely return with a bigger bang.