UNREST IN IRAN ‘IS JUST THE BEGINNING’
▶ Nobel Peace Prize winner hails protests but regime issues warning
Iran yesterday warned it would come down hard on protesters who called for the mullahs to “have some shame and leave the country alone”.
In one of the biggest challenges to the Iranian government and clerical leadership since the 1979 revolution, tens of thousands of Iranians have protested across the country since Thursday.
They have demonstrated against the Iran’s unelected clerical elite and foreign policy in the region, chanted slogans in support of political prisoners and praised the reign of the late shah, Reza Pahlavi.
The protests are the biggest since 2009 after the disputed re-election of former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
And the Iranian lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi believes they are “the beginning of a big movement” that could spread more widely.
“I think the protests are not going to end soon,” Mr Ebadi said yesterday.“It seems to me that we are witnessing the beginning of a big protest movement that can go well beyond the Green wave of 2009. It would not surprise me if it becomes something bigger.”
Last night president Hassan Rouhani said Iranians had the right to protest but warned they must not be allowed to make the public “feel concerned about their lives and security”.
Rahmani Fazli, the interior minister, said: “Those who damage public property, violate law and order and create unrest are responsible for their actions and should pay the price.”
The demonstrations began in Mashhad against high living costs and the struggling economy, before spreading quickly to other areas and turning against the regime, calling on supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to step down.
Two people were killed on Saturday in Dorud, a small town in the Lorestan province of western Iran, and yesterday police arrested 200 people during protests in Tehran, said Ali Asghar Nasserbakht, a security deputy governor of the capital.
The authorities blocked Instagram and other popular messaging apps used by activists to organise and publicise the protests, and imposed travel restrictions and a near-total media blackout.
Slogans such as “Death to the dictator” have been heard throughout the protests, while the demonstrators’ cry of “Long live Reza Shah” broke a longheld taboo by invoking Iran’s last monarch, who was overthrown in the 1979 revolution.
Protesters in the city of Shiraz tore down a banner of Qassem Soleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force that oversees operations in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere.
They have attacked banks and government buildings and burnt police vehicles.
Meanwhile, the deputy governor of Lorestan province blamed foreign agents for the deaths of the two demonstrators in Dorud.
“No shots were fired by the police and security forces,” Habibollah Khojastehpour said yesterday. “We have found evidence of enemies of the revolution, Takfiri groups and foreign agents in this clash.” Takfiri is a term for extreme Sunni militants such as ISIL.
Ahmad Khatami, a hardline cleric who leads Friday prayers in the Tehran, called for capital punishment for those chanting slogans against the values of the Islamic Republic.
An official in Arak, about 300 kilometres south-west of Tehran, said 80 people had been arrested overnight.
“Some intended to enter and damage government places but the attackers did not manage to achieve their goals, and the town is under control,” he said.
US president Donald Trump weighed in on the protests, saying “oppressive regimes cannot endure forever”.
The protests are undoubtedly a concern for Mr Rouhani’s government because he was elected on a promise to guarantee rights to freedom of expression and assembly.
His main achievement is a deal in 2015 with world powers that curbed Iran’s nuclear programme in return for lifting most international sanctions. But it has yet to bring the economic benefits he promised.
The demonstrations could be more worrying for authorities because they appear to be spontaneous and lack a clear leader. No political party has urged people to take to the streets and opposition leaders who galvanised Iranians during 2009 are under house arrest.
The range of slogans suggests discontent across social classes with government policies.
Iran has a dual system of clerical and republican rule, in which each faction vies for control. The supreme leader rules for life and is commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
He appoints the head of the judiciary and has more power over foreign and economic policy than the elected president.
In response to the protests, the government has backed down on plans to raise fuel prices, promised to increase cash handouts to the poor and create more jobs. About 3.2 million Iranians are unemployed.
Government spokesman Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said at least 830,000 jobs were to be created in the coming year but gave no details.
Iranians are also angry about the costly interventions in Syria and Iraq where it is engaged in a proxy war for influence against regional rival Saudi Arabia.