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Updated 7.10pm
TEAR GAS FILLED the streets of downtown Tehran today as protests spilled into a third day, with the government warning against further “illegal gatherings”.
There was chaos around the University of Tehran as several hundred people scuffled with police and shouted slogans against the regime for several hours, bringing traffic to a standstill.
But the regime also put on a show of strength, with hundreds of counter-demonstrators seizing control of the university entrance in Tehran, chanting “Death to the seditionists”.
Videos shared by social media users outside Iran claimed to show thousands marching peacefully in several cities including Khorramabad, Zanjan and Ahvaz, with chants of “Death to the dictator”.
But a swirl of wild rumours online, combined with travel restrictions and a near-total media blackout from official agencies, made it difficult to verify footage.
Telecoms minister Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi accused one popular Telegram channel of encouraging the “use of Molotov cocktails, armed uprising, and social unrest”.
The authorities were fortunate that annual rallies marking the defeat of the last major protest movement in 2009 were already scheduled for this morning and brought thousands of regime enthusiasts to the streets across the country.
“We urge all those who receive these calls to protest not to participate in these illegal gatherings as they will create problems for themselves and other citizens,” warned Interior Minister Abdolrahman Rahmani Fazli.
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews/videos/10155441702627217/
The protests began in the second city of Mashhad on Thursday as an attack on high living costs but quickly turned against the Islamic regime as a whole.
There were even chants in favour of the monarchy toppled by the Islamic revolution of 1979, while others criticised the regime for supporting the Palestinians and other regional movements rather than focusing on problems at home.
State news channel IRINN said it had been banned from covering the protests that spread to towns and cities including Qom and Kermanshah.
“The enemy wants once again to create a new plot and use social media and economic issues to foment a new sedition,” Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, a prominent cleric, told a crowd in Tehran, according to the conservative Fars news agency.
Other officials also pointed the blame outside Iran.
“Although people have a right to protest, protesters must know how they are being directed,” Massoumeh Ebtekar, vice president in charge of women’s affairs, wrote on Twitter.
She posted images from Twitter accounts based in the United States and Saudi Arabia, voicing support for the Mashhad protests.
Washington said that the ‘world is watching’:
Donald J. Trump / Twitter
Donald J. Trump / Twitter / Twitter
Nonetheless, officials warned against dismissing the public anger seen in recent days.
“The country is facing serious challenges with unemployment, high prices, corruption, lack of water, social gap, unbalanced distribution of budget,” wrote Hesamoddin Ashena, cultural adviser to President Hassan Rouhani, on Twitter.
“People have the right for their voice to be heard.”
There has been particular anger at welfare cuts and fuel price increases in the latest budget announced earlier this month.
Since the 2009 protests were ruthlessly put down by the Revolutionary Guards, many middle-class Iranians have abandoned hope of pressing for change from the streets.
But low-level strikes and demonstrations have continued, often on a sector-by-sector basis as bus drivers or teachers or workers from specific factories protest against unpaid wages or poor conditions.
Some of this week’s protests were directed against financial scandals linked to unauthorised lending institutions which collapsed with the loss of hundreds of thousands of accounts.
Payam Parhiz, editor-in-chief of reformist media network Nazar that broke the news of the Mashhad protests, said they were more focused on the economy than those in 2009, which were sparked by allegations of election-rigging.
“Then, they were middle-class and their slogans went beyond economic matters to things like cultural liberties,” he told AFP.
“Today, the concerns are economic. There are people who have lost their life savings. They will protest until their problems are resolved.”
Since taking power in 2013, President Hassan Rouhani has sought to clean up the banking sector and kickstart the economy, but many say progress has been too slow.
Aware that economic problems can quickly spiral into political chaos, officials from across the political spectrum have called for greater efforts to tackle poverty and the 12 percent unemployment rate.
“Solving people’s economic problems is the chief priority in the country,” tweeted Ebrahim Raisi, the hardline cleric defeated by Rouhani in May’s presidential election.
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The article should state since US troops withdrew partially. There is still a significant US military presence in Iraq.
While that is true, officially the troops that are still there are a lot more restricted in their potential operations than what they were allowed to do before December 2011. The idea I believe was to ween Iraq off US dependency for military operations in the aftermath of the invasion rather than leave in one go and abandon the Iraqi army to an insurgency they certainly can’t handle entirely on their own right now.
They’re mostly stationed around oil producing facilities.
How about the terrorists mortar and bomb attacks in Syria, Damascus and Homs, that killed 60 people (including 13 kids playing in their schoolyard) and injuring hundreds. Is that not deemed worthy enough for your readers good folks at thejournal.ie? I would like a reply on this please.
We will probably see the same thing happen in Syria with the up and coming presidential election.
Oh wait, didn’t the United States just recently supply their organ consuming malitia FSA friends with anti tank missiles……
“Oh wait, didn’t the United States just recently supply their organ consuming malitia FSA friends with anti tank missiles……”
Proof?
Proof? The very fact you demand proof to the worst kept secret in modern history just goes to show what a shill you really are…goodbye my love.
All the Proof you need…
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/syrian-rebels-acquire-us-made-antitank-missiles/980/
“Proof? The very fact you demand proof to the worst kept secret in modern history just goes to show what a shill you really are…goodbye my love.”
So I ask for proof that the US was involved in selling those weapons, which you’ll notice I’m not actually denying the existence of, and suddenly I’m a “shill”? Last time I checked accusations usually have to be backed up by proof.
This distraction effort tells me there isn’t any.
Frank, very first paragraph of that article:
“It is unclear how the rebels obtained the wire-guided missiles, which are capable of penetrating any armored vehicle used by the Syrian army.”
Therefore it is not proof. You claimed the US supplied them. Where’s the proof of that?
The US Government is full of lies.
We will know soon enough when these Terrorists are supplied with these latest weapons.
Perhaps the next Christian town that will be ransacked.
“We will know soon enough when these Terrorists are supplied with these latest weapons.”
So you admit that you’re claiming the US sold the weapons to the rebels in Syria without any evidence to support it then?
Stop trying to badger bait the subject… This is typical of what a website Shill would do.
I never said anything about weapons being sold…they were supplied free to terrorists. .
All you have to do yourself Jason is Google US arms rebels in Syria and you’ll get hundreds of thousands of articles, I’m sure you’ll get it there, but you’re intentionally staying ignorant of the fact, simple as that.
“It’s potentially a very significant development. These missiles have not been seen before in Syria,” says Charles Lister, a specialist on the Syrian conflict and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center think tank, who first wrote about the missiles in IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly. Even if the weapons were passed to the rebels from a government that bought them legitimately from the U.S., strict regulations apply to their transfer. “Even if country like Saudi had decided to send these to the rebels, technically the U.S., and [President] Obama would have known about it and given its blessing,” says Lister. It is of course possible that the missiles in question were bought on the black market, and as long as the number of star turns on social media sites run by rebels stay low, that is the most likely scenario. Even if the U.S. or its allies didn’t want to advertise the fact that they were supplying weapons to the rebels, the ubiquity of social media on the Syrian battlefield would mean that their distribution wouldn’t stay secret for long.
Where is the shill gone? Frank, any ideas?
I think you scared him off with the truth.
In the same article you that you presented him with:
The weapons were not directly provided by the United States. “Friends of Syria” delivered them, he said, referring to the U.S.-backed alliance of Western powers and Persian Gulf Arab states established to support the opposition Free Syrian Army. The rebels had to promise to return the canister of each missile fired, to not resell the weapons and to protect them from theft.
Awda declined to offer further details of the provenance of the missiles. But he said the donors made clear to him that the delivery had U.S. approval, and U.S. officials have confirmed that they endorsed the supply.
He probably only read the first two sentences and said, that’s all I need to know thanks.
And the Americans are worried about Russian ‘interference’ in Ukraine. Crazy.
Washington is only worried about keeping its masters in business, the war on terror has run it’s course pal, people are starting to see past that big charade, the focus has now shifted to Russia as the new ‘threat’ to justify the massive public spending on war. The military industrial complex…
This is how the big news networks work nowadays, keep em distracted about the things going on that they/we should really know about…
Did you hear about the LA Clippers? Did you hear about what Cliven Bundy said? Did you hear about that missing plane? Just stay focused on these highly-important stories for a little while longer until I’m done redeploying U.S. forces outside the borders of China and Russia so that when they decide they’ve had enough and attack us for provoking them, you will all be totally in the dark about events leading up to such a move and inevitably turn to your trusted friends in government to ask why they hate us.
have your say