Interior Minister Says Enemies Caused 'Minor' Trouble By Protests
Iran’s interior minister says the past Iranian year was not a difficult year, “but enemies caused trouble and created disturbance” for the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s interior minister says the past Iranian year was not a difficult year, “but enemies caused trouble and created disturbance” for the Islamic Republic.
Ahmad Vahidi, who is an IRGC general, told ILNA news agency on Saturday that “the enemies try to prevent us from dealing with the basic issues by creating marginal problems. In no way, neither our officials nor our beloved nation should pay attention to these sidetracks.”
Using the term “enemies” is a favorite of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to refer to the United States, Israel, US allies in the region and in Europe.
Following Khamenei’s lead, Iranian officials claim that the ongoing antigovernment protests across Iran were instigated by foreign enemies and protesters are often accused of endangering national security.
The interior minister's claim that the regime faced "marginal issues" contradict the extent and duration of the nationwide protests that were unprecedented since the establishment of the Islamic regime in 1979.
According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) over 500 people have been killed during anti-government protests in Iran since September.
Among the dead are tens of minors and security forces, the agency reported. Nearly 20,000 people had also been arrested and four have been executed. Protests were triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, an Iranian Kurdish woman who was arrested by morality police for allegedly not complying with Islamic dress codes.
During his Friday prayer sermons, which was the first in the fasting month of Ramadan, Mowlavi Abdolhamid said, "In the past, we have had elections in which we elected representatives and presidents, but they were not real elections, they were appointments.”
In a free election, people have a choice to vote for whoever they deem fit to represent them, but in Iran the Guardian Council puts forth a number of their cherrypicked insiders, who are not capable of running the country, he said.
He further described killing of protesters and harsh treatment of people detained during over six months of nationwide rallies against the regime as a "big mistake" and a "grave sin."
"There are protests everywhere in the world, but they (authorities) listen to the people and do not kill them like they did in Iran. Killing protesting people in Iran was a big mistake. They should not have hit and killed people with gunfire. Many people went to prison and the detainees were treated harshly, which was a painful and regretful incident,” he said.
Abdolhamid went on to say that neither religion, nor sect, should be a factor when it comes to elections, noting that the only people who should be in managerial positions are those who can make Iran prosperous, not like the current officials who only care about filling their own pockets.
Although street protests are not as frequent as the past few months, peoples’ hearts are "wounded and in pain," the cleric maintained.
Portraying the previous Iranian year as a grim year with lots of ups and downs that led to the creation of the current protest movement, he said, “The people of Iran felt difficulties regarding many issues, they saw themselves in trouble and failure in life, they were under the most severe economic pressures that threaten their livelihood."
In addition to economic issues, the outspoken Sunni leader said systematic corruption, as well as unpopular domestic and foreign policies were other factors led the people to revolt.
This Friday again authorities shut down internet access in Zahedan, the provincial capital of Sistan-Baluchestan where Abdolhamid delivers his sermons and it is home to the country’s Sunni Baluch minority of up to two million people. Cyberspace watchdog NetBlocks confirmed the major disruption to internet service, saying that the incident follows an ongoing pattern of network blackouts targeting protests during Friday prayers.
Following his sermons, people of the city held rallies to protest against the Islamic Republic for the 25th week in a row, chanting anti-regime slogans like “We Don’t Want a Child-Killing Regime.” The Sunni Baluch population have taken to the streets in Zahedan every Friday after prayers since September 30 when government forces cracked down on protesters and killed more than 80 protesters, known as Bloody Friday. Earlier in the day, Haalvsh website, a local news outlet that monitors rights violations in Iran's Baluchestan region, said 121 of the protesters who were killed in Zahedan and Khash on Bloody Friday were identified.
The Belgian capital hosted the European foreign ministers at the Council of Europe on Thursday, a good opportunity for Iranian activists who want European countries to designate the IRGC as a first step, followed by the expulsion of the Islamic Republic’s envoys, towards the fall of the regime.
Several European politicians, including Danial Ilkhanipour and Alireza Akhondi, were among the speakers of the events that were held during the demonstrations.
Ilkhanipour, a German-Iranian member of the Hamburg city parliament, told the crowd that in the past few months, Iranians have shown they can achieve what they want if they unite, referring to several rounds of sanctions by EU and a resolution by the European Parliament asking the EU to list the IRGC as a terrorist entity for its role in the repression of popular protests and the supply of drones to Russia.
Akhondi, a Swedish-Iranian member of the Swedish Parliament, said that “The Islamic Republic has killed people in Europe and kidnapped people such as Iranian-German national Jamshid Sharmahd,” who faces a death sentence in Iran on charge of "corruption on earth". Sharmahd, who is also a US resident, is held by Tehran for allegedly heading a pro-monarchist group accused of a deadly 2008 bombing and planning other attacks in the country. Akhondi claimed that a large number of agents of the Islamic Republic are here in Brussels.
Vahid Beheshti, the British-Iranian activist who is on hunger strike outside the UK Foreign Office for the same cause, also sent a video message to the gathering, telling the European foreign ministers that as Lebanon’s Hezbollah is blacklisted as a terror group, Iran’s Guards should also be designated.
Most of the speakers of the event asked EU members how they can ignore such a large amount of evidence on human rights violations and terrorist acts perpetrated by the IRGC.
Earlier in the day, the block's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell tweeted that “Ukraine has been attacked again by Russia with Iranian drones, targeting educational facilities and a missile attack on a residential building in Zaporizhzhia. Just when Putin expressed need for peaceful settlement to President Xi, Russian again commits war crimes.”
In January, Borrell said that the European Union cannot list the IRGC as a terrorist entity until an European court has determined that they are, noting "Ministers adopted a new package of sanctions against Iran, targeting those driving the repression.” “The EU strongly condemns the brutal and disproportionate use of force by the Iranian authorities against peaceful protesters," he said but no action was taken to designate the IRGC.
The IRGC was set up shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution to protect the Shiite clerical ruling establishment and provide a counterweight to the regular armed forces. It has an estimated 125,000-strong military with army, navy and air units. It also commands the Basij religious militia, a volunteer paramilitary force loyal to the clerical establishment which is often used to crack down on anti-government protests.
There have been numerous Iranian terror acts in Europe, where courts have indicted top officials. In addition, IRGC’s record in organizing attacks elsewhere are well-documented. Critics say that Borrell and many of the European diplomats are focused on re-starting nuclear talks with Iran after the previous long round of negotiations in 2021-2022 ended last September without success.
The current round of antiregime protests engulfed the country in September when 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini was on a trip to capital Tehran where she was beaten to death by the ‘morality police’ for “improper hijab.”
