Unrest ‘ start of big movement’, says Ebadi
hall in Tehran and showed protesters attacking banks and municipal buildings in other parts of the country.
“Those who damage public property, disrupt order and break the law must be responsible for their behaviour and pay the price,” interior minister Abdolrahman Rahmani Fazli said on state television early on Sunday.
“The spreading of violence, fear and terror will definitely be confronted,” he added. Tehran, Dec. 31: Demonstrators attacked a town hall in the Iranian capital on Saturday as protests spilled into a third night despite government warnings against any further “illegal gatherings” and moves to cut off the internet on mobiles.
Unverified videos on social media appeared to show thousands marching through the western cities of Khorramabad, Zanjan and Ahvaz, while reports spread rapidly that several people had been shot dead by police in the town of Dorud.
A swirl of wild rumours, combined with travel restrictions and a neartotal media blackout from official agencies, made it difficult to confirm the reports. Rome, Dec. 31: The unrest in Iran is just “the beginning of a big movement” that could be more widespread than the demonstrations of 2009, the Nobel Peace Prize- winning Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi said in an interview Sunday.
“I think the protests are not going to end soon. 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,” said Ebadi to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
A third night of unrest in Iran saw mass demonstrations across the country in which two people were killed, dozens arrested and public buildings attacked.
The demonstrations are the biggest since the Green Movement protests of 2009 against the re- election of the ultra- conservative expresident Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which were violently repressed.
But now the roots of anger are above all economic and social, according to Abadi, who now lives in exile in London.
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