Army ‘ready to help quell unrest in Iran’
IRAN’S army chief declared on Thursday that police had quelled anti-government unrest that has killed 21 people but that his troops were ready to intervene if needed, as authorities staged more pro-government rallies.
The protests, which seem spontaneous and without a unifying leader, erupted a week ago in Iran’s second city of Mashhad over economic hardships, mostly high youth unemployment, high living costs and alleged corruption.
“Although this blind sedition was so small that a portion of the police force was able to nip it in the bud you can rest assured that your comrades in the Islamic Republic’s army would be ready to confront the dupes of the Great Satan [US],” Major-General Abdolrahim Mousavi was quoted in official media as saying.
Iran’s vastness as well as restrictions on independent media make it hard to determine the breadth and depth of the unrest. The semiofficial labour news agency Ilna said the government on Thursday lifted restrictions on Instagram, one of the social media tools used to mobilise protesters. But access to a more widely used messaging app, Telegram, remained blocked, suggesting authorities remained uneasy about protest threats.
In the latest protests, which generally occur after nightfall, social media video showed demonstrators in Khorramabad in southwestern Iran on Wednesday evening throwing stones at riot police, who were retreating.
In other social media footage, hundreds poured into streets of the north-western city of Orumiyeh near the Turkish border, chanting anti-government slogans.
The student news agency Isna quoted Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli as saying on Thursday that “at most 42,000 people attended the protests, which is not much” in a nation of 80 million people.
On Wednesday, the commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards, Major-General Mohammad Ali Jafari, said the number of “troublemakers” did not exceed 15,000 nationwide.
Amnesty International said on Thursday that more than a thousand Iranians had been arrested and detained in jails “notorious for torture and other ill-treatment over the past seven days”, with many being denied access to families and lawyers.
As unrest spread across Iran, mainly in smaller cities and towns, protesters said they were tired of official anti-Western rhetoric and it was time for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the government of President Hassan Rouhani to quit.
“I voted for Khatami and Rouhani, hoping for change. Hoping for freedom. Hoping to live like a normal human being. But nothing has changed,” said Maryam Azemi, 48, a mother of two in the city of Karaj near Tehran.
“I don’t trust anyone anymore. We waited so long for change in this country. We tried peaceful ways to bring change, like voting, but look at us now. The officials are competing with each other to rip us off.”