Protests in Iran enter fourth day
Anger over inflation, politics
Massive street protests in Iran sparked by anger over a surge in food prices and fueled by political discontent with its current leader are expected to enter a fourth day today in what has become the Islamic Republic’s largest show of national rage in nearly a decade.
Thousands of demonstrators flooded major Iranian cities, including the capital Tehran, and several people were shot, according to reports and social media posts.
The protests started Thursday in the northeastern city of Mashhad — Iran’s second largest — and quickly spread. They appear to have been sparked by social media posts and a surge in prices of basic food supplies, such as eggs and poultry. Officials and state media made a point yesterday of saying Iranians have the right to protest and have their voices heard on social issues.
Reza Marashi of the National Iranian American Council said Friday on Twitter the protests “more closely resemble a continuation of Iran’s long-standing civil rights movement rather than an attempt to overthrow the government.”
“Political, economic and social aspirations of the Iranian people have long been unmet — by the Islamic Republic, as well as its predecessors,” Marashi said. “Until these issues are addressed in a sustainable, comprehensive fashion, the gap between state and society will not fully heal.”
Rouzbeh Parsi, of the European Iran Research Group, said there’s plenty of “wishful thinking” about what the protests “mean.”
“It’s not about uprising and revolution,” Parsi said on Twitter. “It’s about hardships of everyday life — what these protests will amount to/trigger will depend on reaction of authorities.”
Yesterday’s demonstrations met a stark contrast in government-backed rallies commemorating the quashing of the 2009 Green Movement, which challenged the re-election of thenPresident Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
But the thousands of protesters across Iran were louder, chanting against high-ranking government officials, including President Hassan Rouhani, who won the election promising to fix Iran’s economy, and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranians shouted “Death to the dictator” and “Clerics should get lost,” even telling Khamenei to “Let the country go,” The New York Times reported.
Two men in the western town of Dorud were shot dead, according to social media posts that claimed they were killed by riot police firing on the protesters.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in June that America is working toward “support of those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of that government” — a statement now being used by Iran’s government as evidence of foreign interference in its internal politics.
The State Department issued a statement Friday supporting the protests, referencing Tillerson’s earlier comments.
In part, the statement read, “Iran’s leaders have turned a wealthy country with a rich history and culture into an economically depleted rogue state, whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed and chaos.”