Iran International
Iranian authorities are claiming that protests are over, threatening activists and celebrities amid calls to strike by various groups including some oil workers.
Officials, who only refer to the protests as “riots” and blame “foreign enemies”, claimed Thursday that ‘rioters’ are back in their homes, and all is quiet now, before protests resumed in the afternoon.
“The recent riots have ended, and security has been established in Tehran which has been secure in the past few nights,” governor of Tehran Province, Mohsen Mansouri said Thursday. “We will take action against celebrities who fanned the fire of the riots,” he said.
Authorities also say they have arrested some of the “leaders of the riots” in various cities and threatened to take action against celebrities many of whom have published posts on social media supporting the protesters’ cause and condemning violence against them.
Reports on social media Wednesday, however, portrayed a different picture. These reports said protesters were staging smaller flash mob style protests in many areas amid the very heavy presence of security forces and plainclothes agents, who had turned out in large numbers on foot and on motorbikes, amid serious disruption of the internet.
Various reports point to a situation of physical and psychological fatigue for security forces, as protesters seem determined to persevere.
Disruption of the internet has seriously affected uploading of footage from protests on social media platforms all of which are now blocked. Some new footage of protests from previous days is still emerging on social media. Mostafa Faghihi, managing director of Entekhab website, in a tweet Wednesday said he had to try various VPNs for five hours to finally access his Twitter account at four in the morning.
Calls to strike have come from various groups, including teachers and university students. In a video posted on the union’s Twitter Wednesday a truck driver says some drivers have been on strike for three days but have not been able to inform others of their call to strike due to internet disruptions. On Thursday, the coordination council of contracted oil industry workers issued a statement saying they would go on strike if suppression of protesters and arrests continue.
Meanwhile, media have been gagged from reporting the protests altogether. There were no photos and no headlines referring to the protests on the front pages of newspapers, but a few have ventured some mild criticism of the situation. Hardliner newspapers such as the IRGC-linked Javan newspaper, however, beat on the drums of revenge against celebrities for siding with protesters. “The Law’s Priority Is Punishing Rioter Celebrities”, Javan printed across its front-page Thursday.
Authorities have also targeted journalists. Niloufar Hamedi from the reformist Sharq newspaper, who had reported Mahsa’s case from the hospital with a photo of the young woman in coma was arrested several days ago whileElaheh Mohammadi, a journalist with the reformist Ham Mihan newspaper, who had reported the funeral of Mahsa Amini, the young woman whose death in custody sparked the protests, from her hometown Saqqez in Kordestan Province, was also arrested Thursday.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) on Wednesday published a list of 16 journalists arrested in Iran since the protests began.
The figure was sourced by Iran International to the lawyer of Efaheh Mohammadi, who said his client had been arrested after covering for the Ham-Mihan newspaper the funeral of Mahsa Amini, who died 16 September after being detained by morality police.
Mohammadi was reported in December 2021 by the Mujahideen-e Khalq, the Albania-based opposition group, to be banned from journalism for a year after Revolutionary Guards’ (IRGC) Intelligence complained over her reporting of “women’s issues” and the downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane near Tehran January 2020 during tensions with the United States.
The International Federation of Journalists, the Brussels-based association, claimed Monday 17 journalists had been arrested including two from the reformist newspaper Shargh and three from Mukrian, a Kurdish news agency, including editor Masoud Kurdpur.
Novelist J.K. Rowling, widely known for her Harry Potter books, tweeted Wednesday on the arrest of Niloufar Hamedi, arguing the Iran should be “held accountable for its human rights violations.” Rowling referred to a London Times article published Tuesday with a Dubai dateline that said Hamedi was held in solitary confinement after “breaking the news that Amini, 22, was in hospital following her arrest,” and publishing “a photo of her parents hugging each other in the hospital corridor, which spread rapidly online.”
Social media: ‘venue for the enemies’
Lotfollah Siakhali, a principlist member of parliament who is a proponent of internet restrictions, told reporters Wednesday that social media was “the biggest venue for the enemies to further their conspiracies” and therefore “restrictions [on Internet access] will continue” as long as unrest went on.
The IRGC commander in Tehran said on Wednesday that 185 members of the Basij militia, which has both full-time and part-time members and is IRGC-affiliated, had been injured during clashes, some critically. Basij militia is widely used in attacking protesters.
But Elon Musk’s headline-grabbing offer September 23 to extend the Starlink satellite Internet link to Iran has floundered. Musk’s intervention was followed by a US announcement lifting the threat of sanctions against anyone providing internet services or equipment to Iran. Musk reportedly told Washington-based Carnegie Endowment fellow Karim Sadjadpour Sunday: “Starlink is now activated in Iran. It requires the use of terminals in-country, which I suspect the government will not support, but if anyone can get terminals into Iran, they will work.”
‘Watch out for Gollum’
Middle East Eye reminded readers Tuesday that Musk once tweeted that “Iran’s nuclear weapons facility is apparently called ‘Frodo’. Watch out for Gollum!”?
Iranian leaders and officials resorted to their playbook of accusing the US and foreign-based media operations of fomenting violence, largely though the conduit of social media. In a televised interview on the official IRIB television Wednesday President Ebrahim Raisi criticized “fabricated claims on killing people” circulated by “the enemy.”
The Iranian government rarely issues permits for protests, except to its own supporters who do not need any formal permission. Six reformist parties, that do not oppose the Islamic Republic, submitted a request days ago and have not received any response.
Heath minister Bahram Einollahi said last week that 72 ambulances had been destroyed. Activists based abroad, cited in the UK Observer newspaper, claimed this happened because ambulances were used to move police forces.