Stability depends on Iranians

IRANIAN FOREIGN minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in a tweet: “Iran’s security and stability depend on its own people, who ... have the right to vote and to protest. These hard-earned rights will be protected, and infiltrators will not be allowed to sabotage them through violence and destruction.”

The facts: In Iran, protests must receive prior approval from the Interior Ministry, which oversees its police. None of the peaceful protests in Iran this past week appear to have received that permission.

Iran also violently suppressed the 2009 mass protests that followed the disputed re-election of then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a crackdown that saw thousands detained, dozens killed and others tortured. The protest movement’s leaders remain under house arrest years later.

Iran does allow some labour strikes or unauthorised demonstrations to take place, like when coal miners, angry over the deaths of at least 42 of their colleagues in an explosion in May, confronted Rouhani during his presidential re-election campaign. Iran’s government also organised two days of mass demonstrations across the country Wednesday and Thursday as a sign of strength and to reassure those worried about the unrest.

Iranians do vote in elections for president and parliament, but unelected cleric-led bodies vet would-be candidates and bar from running those they don’t approve of. Final say on all matters of state rests with the supreme leader.