The Iranian government yesterday warned people against further protests after two days of demonstrations sparked by anger over an array of economic problems.
“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,” Iranian Minister of the Interior Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said.
State broadcaster Islamic Republic of Iran News Network said it had been banned from covering the protests that on Thursday spread from Iran’s second city, Mashhad, to other areas.
Photo: AP
The protests initially targeted economic problems, but quickly turned against the Muslim regime as a whole.
US President Donald Trump said “the world is watching” after dozens of demonstrators were arrested.
Media coverage inside Iran focused almost exclusively on pro-regime rallies held yesterday to mark the defeat of the last major protest movement in 2009.
The timing was coincidental, as the rallies are held every year on Dec. 30, but offered a handy show of strength to the regime as huge crowds of black-clad supporters gathered across the country.
“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 told a crowd in Tehran, the conservative Fars news agency reported.
Video footage on social media showed hundreds marching through the holy city of Qom on Friday evening, with people chanting “Death to the dictator” and “Free political prisoners.”
There were even chants in favor of the monarchy toppled by the 1979 Islamic revolution, while others criticized the regime over its support of the Palestinians and other regional movements rather than focusing on problems at home.
Footage showed thousands gathered in cities including Rasht, Hamadan, Kermanshah and Qazvin, with police responding with water cannons.
Officials were quick to blame outside forces for the unrest.
“Although people have a right to protest, protesters must know how they are being directed,” Iranian Vice President for Women and Family Affairs Masoumeh Ebtekar said on Twitter.
Since the 2009 protests were ruthlessly put down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, many middle-class Iranians have abandoned hope of pressing for change from the streets.
However, low-level strikes and demonstrations have continued, often on a sector-by-sector basis, as bus drivers, 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 unauthorized lending institutions that collapsed with the loss of hundreds of thousands of accounts.
Payam Parhiz, editor-in-chief of reformist Nazar media network 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 reporters. “Today, the concerns are economic. There are people who have lost their life savings. They will protest until their problems are resolved.”
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
SHIFT PRIORITIES: The US should first help Taiwan respond to actions China is already taking, instead of focusing too heavily on deterring a large-scale invasion, an expert said US Air Force leaders on Thursday voiced concerns about the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) missile capabilities and its development of a “kill web,” and said that the US Department of Defense’s budget request for next year prioritizes bolstering defenses in the Indo-Pacific region due to the increasing threat posed by China. US experts said that a full-scale Chinese invasion of Taiwan is risky and unlikely, with Beijing more likely to pursue coercive tactics such as political warfare or blockades to achieve its goals. Senior air force and US Space Force leaders, including US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink and
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
Czech officials have confirmed that Chinese agents surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March 2024 and planned a collision with her car as part of an “unprecedented” provocation by Beijing in Europe. Czech Military Intelligence learned that their Chinese counterparts attempted to create conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, which “did not go beyond the preparation stage,” agency director Petr Bartovsky told Czech Radio in a report yesterday. In addition, a Chinese diplomat ran a red light to maintain surveillance of the Taiwanese