Iran holds pro-govt rallies
Tens of thousands throng cities in show of support for Teheran.
Teheran: Tens of thousands gathered across Iran in a massive show of strength for the country’s Islamic rulers after days of deadly unrest, with state television showing vast crowds marching through several cities.
Chants of “Leader, we are ready” were heard as images showed thousands rallying in the cities of Qom, Ahvaz, Kermanshah and elsewhere.
The demonstrators waved Iranian flags and pictures of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as placards saying “Death to seditionists”.
“We offer the blood in our veins to our leader,” was another popular chant.
There were few reports of anti-regime protests overnight, although it remained difficult to verify information from the provinces.
The political establishment has closed ranks against the unrest that has claimed 21 lives since it erupted last week.
They say the protests, which began over economic issues on Dec 28 but quickly turned more radical, were part of a foreign plot to destabilise the regime.
“The enemy is always looking for an opportunity and any crevice to infiltrate and strike the Iranian nation,” Khamenei said.
Washington continued to exert pressure on the Islamic republic, with its UN ambassador Nikki Haley calling for emergency Security Council talks to discuss the situation.
“The people of Iran are crying out for freedom,” she said at a news conference. “All freedom-loving people must stand with their cause.”
Even reformists, who backed the last major protest movement against alleged election-rigging in 2009, condemned the violence and the support the demonstrations have
received from the United States.
But they also urged the authorities to address economic grievances that have fuelled the protests.
“Officials must acknowledge the deplorable situation of the country as the first step to hearing the protesters,” tweeted Mohammad Taghi Karroubi, whose father Mehdi Karroubi has been under house arrest for almost seven years for helping lead the 2009 demonstrations.
Many have been turned off by the violence, which has contrasted with the largely peaceful marches in
2009. But on the streets of the capital, there is widespread sympathy with the economic grievances driving the unrest, particularly an unemployment rate as high as 40% for young people.
“The poorer section of society is really under pressure,” Sakineh Eidi, a 37-year-old pharmacist in Teheran said. “But I don’t think it will continue.”
Yesterday, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani expressed hope in a telephone call with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the protests would end in a few days, a
Turkish presidential source said.
Erdogan told Rouhani that “peace and stability” in Iranian society had to be preserved and said he concurred with his Iranian counterpart’s statement that the right to protest should not lead to “violations of the law”.
“President Rouhani thanked President Erdogan for his sensitivity and expressed hope that the protests would end in a few days,” said a statement by a Turkish presidential source. The comments were not immediately confirmed by the Iranian side. — AFP