Rallies In Iran Continue With Mourning Ceremonies For Protesters
Friday protests in Iran were mainly focused on the mourning ceremonies for people killed during 75 days of unrest, with Bandar Anzali, Arak, and Izeh being the hotspots of the rallies.
Friday protests in Iran were mainly focused on the mourning ceremonies for people killed during 75 days of unrest, with Bandar Anzali, Arak, and Izeh being the hotspots of the rallies.
One of the mourning gatherings was for Mehran Samak, a 27-year-old resident of Bandar Anzali in the northern province of Gilan, who died in hospital after being shot in the head with a bullet this week while he was celebrating after the Iranian soccer team’s loss against the US in the World Cup. Many Iranians wanted their team to lose because players had not shown support for antigovernment protests.
But once people crowded the streets after the football match ended in Qatar, security forces opened fire at cars that were honking as a sign of celebration, hitting Samak and many others. The government was ready to celebrate a win against the US team and security forces who had been prepared to wave flags and distribute sweets to people, were in no mood to see protesters expressing happiness for Iran’s loss.
Hours before Samak’s mourning gathering Friday, security forces had blocked the roads leading to the designated location. However, the protesters attended the mourning ceremony for the third day after his death, chanting "We will fight, we will die, we will take back Iran..."
In the city of Arak, people gathered for the 40th day anniversary of the death of Sina Malayeri, chanting slogans such as “Poverty, corruption and high prices, we are going to overthrow the government."
They chanted, "Death to Khamenei" and "This year is the year of the blood, Ali Khamenei is downed.”
Malayeri was reportedly killed by security forces and his body was found in a workshop near his place of residence, but the city’s prosecutor claimed that he died due to a drag overdose.
In the city of Izeh in the oil-rich Khuzestan province, people held gatherings in honor of Hamed Slahshour, a protester whose body was buried in a graveyard near the city by the security forces. His body was exhumed by his family members and re-buried in the family’s plot, but did not manage to do so under pressure of the security forces. The Iranian Human Rights Center reported that the 22-year-old was killed under torture after his arrest.
The mourning protest gatherings came on the backdrop of widespread rallies in the Baluch-majority cities across Sistan-Baluchistan province as the government has killed nearly a hundred people in the impoverished region since September 30. Protesters marched after Friday prayers particularly to voice support for their religious leader Mowlavi Abdolhamid.
The popular protests demanding an end to Islamic rule started in mid-September when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was killed in the custody of the so-called “morality police,” igniting the boldest protest movement against the Islamic Republic in its 43-year history.
About 18,000 people have been arrested since the beginning of the protests, and some death sentences have already been issued for the protesters, though none have been carried out. According to Norway-based HRANA on December 2, 469 protestors and 61 members of the security forces have been killed in protests since September 17.
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Residents of several cities Sistan-Baluchistan Province, including its capital Zahedan, held demonstrations after Friday prayers as they have done since unrest began in mid-September in Iran. The protesters are especially enraged over a recently leaked document that revealed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has ordered his officials to defame Abdolhamid, the most prominent religious leader of Iran's largely Sunni Baluch population living in the province.
Earlier this week the hacktivist group Black Reward breached the data servers of Fars news agency, affiliated with the Islamic Republic's Revolutionary Guard, and released several documents indicating that Khamenei is dismayed by Abdolhamid’s remarks, who has been critical of Iran’s autocrat for the indiscriminate crackdown on protests in the province and elsewhere.
Relations between Abdolhamid and the government became tense after security forces opened fire on demonstrators in Zahedan September 30, killing more than 80 people.
In addition to Zahedan on Friday, protesters in Chabahar, Khash, Iranshahr, and Zahak, chanted slogans such as "Sheikh-ul-Islam (Abdolahamid) is with God, Khamenei is disgraced,” “Salute to Mowlavi, Death to Khamenei,” and “With Hijab or without hijab, moving towards revolution.”
According to videos posted on social media, security forces clashed with protesters in Zahedan and used teargas to disperse the gathering.
During his Friday prayer sermon earlier in the day, Abdolhamid decried the torture of detained protesters and warned the Islamic Republic against issuing verdicts that call protesters mohareb (muharib), which means warrior in Arabic. In Iran’s Islamic law the term means ‘enemy of God’ which carries the death penalty.
"A prisoner is a captive. Beating, insulting, cursing and assaulting him is against the teachings of Imam Ali (the first Shiite imam), Ahl al-Bayt (the family of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad), Hazrat Rasool (Prophet Muhammad) and Islam. The dissidents and critics should be treated in an Islamic manner,” he emphasized.
Abdolhamid went on to say that the nation has endured problems for 44 years, now they are protesting, insisting that their protests should not be a pretext to execute them. He said that their demands are legitimate, adding, "We want our country to be safe and united. We don't have Shiites, Sunnis or ethnic groups here. We are all Iranians. From Zoroastrians and Dervishes to Baha’is. They are also human and Iranian, and their rights should be respected…If an American or an Israeli speaks the truth, it is still the truth," he said.
Dervishes of the Gonabadi order are among religious groups seen as potential security threats in Iran, and are regularly persecuted by the regime. Baha'is, who number around 300,000 in Iran, also say their rights are systematically violated and they are often harassed, forced to leave their homes and businesses, and are deprived of government jobs and university education. Khamenei has on several occasions called the Baha'i faith a cult and in a religious fatwa in 2018 forbade contact, including business dealings, with followers of the faith.
Referring to the recent leak and the regime’s efforts to tarnish his image, Abdolhamid said "If the reign and power are in your hands, it was God's will. If we have respect and love of people, it is also a God's gift. What God gives, only He can take back. God gives honor and takes it away. No one else can take someone’s honor."
Abdolhamid's popularity is largely because of his willingness to challenge Khamenei’s absolute power. Earlier in November, the outspoken Sunni Imam said women, ethnic and religious groups have faced discrimination after the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979.
Nearly 80 days into the protests, the regime seems exhausted and frustrated over its inability to quell the uprising, resorting to more executions, harsher sentences, extrajudicial detentions and intimidations.
Remarks by a member of the parliament national security committee, Shahriar Haydari, published on Friday show that the regime might be changing course in dealing with the unrest that convulsed Iran following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini. Trying to project the idea that the protests have come to an end, he said that about the 90 percent of the people who were out on streets were protesters and only 10 percent were “rioters” a term that the authorities, including the Supreme Leader and the president, have been using to describe the popular uprising.
The change in the discourse may seem like an acknowledgment of the demands of the people in face of the dire economic conditions and lack of freedoms, but it can simply serve as a pretext for the regime to execute the “10 percent,” whom Haydari described as “rioters, thugs, terrorists, and agents of foreign intelligence services.” The Islamic Republic has ways to bend the laws of the country to execute people for on trumped up charges in the absence of due process of law.
Despite growing warnings by foreign countries and international organizations over the crackdown on dissent, the Islamic Republic has intensified repressive measures with reports of accelerated death sentences and executions. The clampdown is especially harsh in Kurdish and Baluch majority regions in western and southeastern parts of the country.
In recent days, Baluch local media reported that two minors – identified as Mohammad Rakhshani and Ali Rakhshani -- are in danger of imminent execution. However, the reports were denied by the prosecutor of Sistan-Baluchistan province. But there are other confirmed reports that at least seven residents of the province – all from the persecuted Baluch ethnic minority – were executed last week.
Social media is also full of audio footage or reports of prisoners who are in critical condition and the regime denies them the necessary medical care to keep them alive. Many of the protesters have been arrested after being injured by shotgun birdshots as well as being beaten by batons or suffering tear gas attacks. Almost none of them are taken to hospitals as there are numerous videos of ambulances transferring the injured directly to detention centers. Some of the protesters have been injured during interrogations and torture after they were arrested. One of the strategies of the regime forces is to keep them in such a bad condition for a long time that they cannot participate in rallies again, even after their probable release.
It seems that the regime has started to release celebrities or prominent dissident figures as a show that it is managing the situation but intensifying pressure on ordinary people whose arrest or deaths would not get a large media attention in the international community.
Nonetheless, documents revealed by hackers who tapped into the database of the IRGGC-linked Fars news agency indicate that Ali Khamenei secretly told his inner circle and military commanders that an end to the protest is not in sight.
Meanwhile, according to the leaked audio file of a recent insiders’ meeting at the Basij Militia HQ focusing on the protests, a top IRGC commander has acknowledged that the protests continue to go ahead with full force.
Khabar Online, a moderate conservative news website in Tehran, in a report Wednesday probed into the continuity of the nationwide uprising in Iran and asked whether the Iranian government and Parliament (Majles) have a true understanding of the nature of the protests that have continued for some 75 days so far. The report also tried to shed light on why the use of force is the government's solution for all problems.
To put the bottom-line upfront, the report concluded that one of the main reasons for continuing protests is in fact the government and the parliament's lack of understanding of the situation. Even insider analysts over-emphasize the role of the current economic crisis as a driving force fueling public outrage. The article said that any good analysis should review the course of events in the past 25 years.
The reformist government that came to power in 1997 was unable to institute any political and economic reforms because hardliners obstructed all routes and created many crises for the government. In mid-2000s the government was handed over to conservatives who ruled out political reforms altogether. The nuclear program pursued by hardliners led to US and international sanctions against Iran.
Moderate Hassan Rouhani's victory in 2013 was aimed at eliminating grievances about the economic situation by bringing about a breakthrough in the nuclear issue, but hardliners played the same obstructive role with the resulting economic crisis fuelling protests in 2017-2019.
US-based sociologist Asef Bayat told Etemad newspaper recently that "The current protests have brought together the middle and lower classes as well as ethnic groups such as Kurds, Azaris, and Baluchis with the slogan of 'Woman, Life, Freedom'. This has given a new characteristic to the protests while at the same time concerns about women and their dignity are at the center of the movement." Bayat added, "It looks like the people are determined to take back their lost youth, lost life and lost joys and are looking for a decent, ordinary life denied by the government which has no idea about the powerful quest for normal life."
Bayat attached high importance to how Iranian women felt humiliated by the government, its compulsory hijab rule and its morality police as a factor in the protests. She said it was a similar humiliation felt also by men that brought them to the streets in protest.
Another Iranian sociologist, Yousef Abazari highlighted the emergence of a new generation that cannot stand the dictatorship of existing rulers.
The scholars said that because of all kinds of restrictions, and general mismanagement, society has left behind all peaceful stages and has entered a phase characterized by anger while the government's only solution is suppressing this anger. This, they said, can only deepen and strengthen the sulking between the people and the government