Rouhani acknowledges Iranian
discontent as protests continue
People take to the streets again
despite heavy police presence and efforts to block social media apps
Saeed Kamali Dehghan Iran correspondent
Sun 31 Dec ‘17 19.09 GMT First published on Sun 31 Dec ‘17
11.53 GMT
Iranian authorities have threatened a crackdown against
protesters and scrambled to block social media apps allegedly used to incite
unrest as the biggest demonstrations in nearly a decade continued for a fourth
day.
People across Iran took to the streets again on Sunday
evening in defiance of a heavy presence of riot police and state warnings to
stay away.
The demonstrations began over economic grievances on
Thursday but have since taken on a political dimension, with unprecedented
calls for the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to step down.
Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, in his first comments
about the protests, aired on national television on Sunday night, said “people
have the right to criticise”, but said the authorities would not tolerate
antisocial behaviour. He said criticism was “different from violence and
destroying pubic properties”.
Officials said they arrested at least 200 people during
demonstrations in central Tehran on Saturday. It was not clear how many were
arrested in the provinces, which saw protests on a bigger scale than the
capital. Two protesters were killed in western Iran on Saturday.
The protests are the biggest in Iran since 2009, when
demonstrators called for the removal of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president after
what they regarded as his fraudulent re-election.
Videos posted on social media from Saturday night in Tehran
showed protesters taking down large banners depicting the ayatollah’s image, in
acts of resistance rarely seen since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
One video showed demonstrators taking down an image of the
leader of Iran’s powerful Quds force, Qassem Suleimani, who is spearheading
Iran’s involvement in regional affairs, particularly the war in Syria.
Rouhani, urging the nation to be vigilant, acknowledged that
people were unhappy about the state of economy, corruption and a lack of
transparency. “People are allowed under the constitution to criticise or even
protest but […] in a way that at the end they lead to a better situation in the
country for the people,” he said.
Condemning the US president, Donald Trump, who has voiced
support for the protests, Rouhani said: “This gentleman who today sympathises
with our people has forgotten that a few months ago he called us a terrorist
nation. The one who has opposed the Iranian nation from his head to his toe has
no right to express sympathy for people of Iran.”
On Sunday Trump tweeted that “people are finally getting
wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on
terrorism”, adding that the US was “watching very closely for human rights
violations”.
Earlier in the day, Iran’s interior minister, Abdolreza
Rahmani-Fazil, said authorities would not tolerate the “spreading of violence,
fear and terror”, which he said would “definitely be confronted”.
“Those who damage public property, disrupt order, people’s
security and break the law must be responsible for their behaviour and should
answer and pay the price,” he said, according to the website of the state
broadcaster Irib.
The broadcaster said authorities had blocked Instagram and
the messaging app Telegram, which is the most popular social networking
platform in Iran, citing an anonymous source who said the move was “in line
with maintaining peace and security of the citizens”. Authorities said the
filtering was temporary.
Telegram’s CEO, Pavel Durov, said it had blocked access to
the popular Amadnews channel after it had “started to instruct their
subscribers to use Molotov cocktails against police”.
A source in Iran told the Guardian the state had started
blocking access to Telegram, but it was not covering all provinces yet.
Authorities said two protesters were killed in the western
province of Lorestan on Saturday, but denied it was the result of clashes
between demonstrators and riot police.
The deputy governor for Lorestan, Habibollah Khojastehpour,
said police and security guards had not opened fire, and instead blamed
“Takfiri groups” – Iran’s term for Sunni extremists – and foreign intelligence
services. “Unfortunately in these clashes two citizens from [the city of]
Doroud were killed,” he said.
Many senior figures within the reformist camp and the
opposition Green movement remain perplexed as to how to respond to the current wave
of unrest. The sharp nature of some of the slogans, which have challenged the
foundations of the Islamic republic, has left them mute.
There have been anti-Khamenei chants such as “Death to the
dictator” and slogans opposing Iran’s regional policy, including “Let go of
Syria, think about us” and “I give my life for Iran, not Gaza, not Lebanon”.
There were also nostalgic slogans in support of the monarchy
and the late shah, as well as some with a nationalistic nature, including “We
are of Aryaee [Aryan] race, we don’t worship Arabs.” Relatively fewer chants
were heard in support of two opposition leaders under house arrest, Mir Hossein
Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi.
Some videos showed protesters apparently setting bins on
fire and trying to break into government buildings. The semi-official Tasnim
news, which is close to the elite Revolutionary Guards, published a photo that
it said showed a protester setting fire to the Iranian flag. There were chants
of “Death to the Revolutionary Guards” in at least one city.
Many Iranians are sceptical about how the protests have
spread so quickly. One prominent senior reformist commentator, Hamidreza
Jalaipour, said reformists were opposed to protests instigated by “advocates of
regime change”, implying that the new wave of protests was not spontaneous.
A protester from Tehran University told the Guardian by
phone that although students were puzzled about how the protests were organised
and spreading so quickly, they were not “getting leads from anyone”.
Ali Vaez, Iran project director at International Crisis
Group, called the protests “an explosion of the Iranian people’s pent-up
frustrations over economic and political stagnation”, but he said: “This is
neither a revolution nor a movement.”
Vaez said: “Given its lack of leadership, organisation and
mission, it is likely to peter out or will be quelled. The Rouhani
administration has two options: it can follow the example of its predecessors
([Ali Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani after the protests of the early 1990s and
[Mohammad] Khatami after the 1999 student uprising) and opt for a more cautious
path, or capitalise on public discontent to push the system towards more
genuine reforms. That choice will ultimately determine the Islamic Republic’s fate.”
Iranian conservatives, while acknowledging ordinary people
were protesting for what they said were mainly economic reasons, accused
foreign powers of inciting violence and exploiting the situation.
Iran's enemies would be wise not to
wish for regime change
Tensions with Saudi Arabia are high,
and any weakening of the Iranian government could lead to a dangerous
escalation
Simon Tisdall
Mon 1 Jan ‘18 05.00 GMT
Like birds of prey circling high in the desert sky, Iran’s
many foes and rivals are watching the street protests in Tehran and other
cities with beady-eyed anticipation.
Hopes that the unrest could trigger regime collapse, voiced
openly in the US and Israel, appear premature. But any real or imagined
weakening of the Iranian government’s grip could presage a dangerous escalation
of regional tensions.
Predominantly Shia Muslim Iran’s efforts to project its
power across the Middle East have earned it many enemies. Its expansionist
policy gathered pace after the strategic cuffs came off at the end of the cold
war, and accelerated following the British-American debacle in Iraq after 2003.
Iran is now a leading actor in post-Saddam Iraq, Syria and
Lebanon. These perceived encroachments are a cause of great resentment, not
only in Iraq’s Sunni heartlands to the north and west of Baghdad but especially
in the headquarters of Sunni Islam, Saudi Arabia.
Iranian officials have already accused the Saudis of
fomenting the protests. When Lorestan’s deputy governor blamed “takfiri groups”
(Sunni extremists) and “foreign intelligence services”, he was using code for
Riyadh.
Until recently, the idea that Saudi Arabia was secretly
plotting regime change in Iran might have seemed outlandish. But tensions
between the two countries are at an all-time high.
The Saudis accused Iran of direct responsibility for a
recent missile attack on the king’s royal palace in Riyadh. The missile was
launched from Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition is fighting Houthi rebels
backed by Tehran.
The rivalry extends to Lebanon, where the Saudi crown
prince, Mohammed bin Salman, mounted what most observers concluded was a
bungled coup in November to reduce the influence of Tehran-backed Hezbollah,
the Lebanese Shia political party and militia.
In his drive to repulse Iran, knock Qatar and other Arab
Gulf states into line, and assert control at home, the youthful Salman has
gained a reputation for recklessness. Nobody truly knows how far Salman is
prepared to go, although he has vowed in the past “to take the fight to Iran”
and has described Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as “the new
Hitler of the Middle East”.
What is a surprise is the sudden eruption of the protests,
which had no obvious internal trigger
Salman has attracted an enthusiastic informal following and
a spoof video depicting a Saudi military conquest of Iran recently went viral.
Salman has the strong backing of his friend Jared Kushner,
Donald Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East envoy. Trump’s hostility towards what
he calls Iran’s “rogue regime”, and his wish to see it toppled, are no secret.
What is a surprise is the sudden eruption of the protests,
which had no obvious internal trigger. Trump and Mike Pence, his
vice-president, voiced hopes Iran’s “oppressive regime” would fall, ignoring
the fact that Hassan Rouhani was democratically re-elected as president less
than one year ago.
Israeli politicians are also excited about regime change in
Iran. The regional cooperation minister, Tzachi Hanegbi, said Iranian
protesters were “courageously risking their lives in the pursuit of freedom”,
and called on the “civilised world” to support them.
But Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, who has
built a career demonising Iran as an existential threat, urged them to pipe
down – presumably concerned that Iran’s leaders could turn their wrath on Israel.
If Netanyahu fears a backlash, he is probably wise to do so. Unlike Trump and
Pence, Israel is in the firing line if matters get out of hand.
Israel says Iran has stepped up missile and weapon supplies
to Hezbollah in Lebanon and to Palestinian militants in Gaza. It is
increasingly worried about the security of its de facto Golan Heights border
with Syria. A weakened, wounded Iran could lash out. It could also prove a
disruptive, unpredictable partner for both Iraq and Syria, as well as for Turkey
and Russia, currently Tehran’s allies of convenience.
As for the circling American, Saudi and Israeli hawks, they
should be careful what they wish for.
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