Protesters Hold Fresh Anti-Government Gatherings In Tehran

Reports say permanently employed workers in the industry held protest gatherings in Ahvaz, Asaluyeh, Dehloran, Shiraz, Ilam, Bandar Lengeh and Aghajari in the south and southwest of Iran.

In previous months, contract workers also held sporadic protests and strikes along with anti-government demonstrations in the country.

Videos published on social media show employees working at the Ilam Gas Refinery held a protest gathering on Tuesday.

In the meantime, permanent workers at Pars Oil and Gas Company in Asaluyeh stopped working and organized a gathering to show anger at low wages.

Similar events were also staged in Aghajari, Shiraz, Qeshm island, Jam, Dehloran, and Ahvaz.

These strikes are at a time when people are also protesting the incompetency of the government to supply natural gas to households in some regions.

Monday evening, residents in Torbat-e Jam, a town in the northeast gathered outside the governor's office to protest the gas cut off. They chanted slogans like "Death to the governor".

On Monday, people in Torbat-e Jam also rushed to the Red Crescent building to get oil heaters. Videos show some agents prevented people from breaking into the facility.

In order to resolve the gas crisis in Tehran and other cities, the Islamic Republic has shut down schools and offices.

Hengaw Human Rights Organization announced in a tweet Monday that 13 children, five university students, four teachers, and five women are among the detainees.

Iranian security forces used excessive and lethal force against protesters in Kurdish regions since the beginning of nationwide protests following the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in police custody in mid-September.

There are no exact figures on the number of people arrested during the protests across the country, but some sources say nearly 20,000 people have been detained.

Security forces have killed around 500 civilians during the protests, many from Kurdish and Sunni regions in the southeast.

The Islamic Republic’s attacks on Kurds are not limited to the crackdown on protesters as the IRGC has also stepped-up shelling of Iranian Kurdish parties in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.

Back in November, the IRGC launched missile attacks against the positions of the dissident Iranian Kurdish group, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan in Erbil. At least three missiles hit the party's positions including a hospital, causing casualties.

The Islamic Republic calls the Kurdish armed groups in the western provinces of Iran, "terrorist groups" or "anti-revolutionary" but these groups say that the goal of their armed campaign is "defending the rights of the Kurds".

“I’m here on behalf of the European Parliament and on behalf of 500 million European citizens to tell you that we are with you … That the women, men, students standing up in Iran have inspired the world,” the European Parliament’s speaker, Roberta Metsola, said in an address to the rally. “Your cry ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ has been heard in every corner of the globe. You are on the right side of history, and you will make history,” she said.

“I have just addressed a rally and repeated the European Parliament’s call for a more forceful response to the terror unleashed by the regime of Iran. The people on the streets chanting Women Life Freedom will make history,” Metsola tweeted after her address to the rally.

“We will rescue our Iran from [the hands of] the mullahs,” Darya Safai, a Belgian-Iranian member of the Belgian Parliament told the participants in the rally. She vowed she would make every effort as an MP to tell her peers that it is putting the IRGC on the EU list of terrorist organizations is important not only for the Iranian people but also for “a safer world”.

Holding the IRGC responsible for “feeding and funding” many terrorist groups in the region, including Fatemiyoun and Zeynabiyoun who fight in Syria, the Hezbollah of Lebanon, the Islamic Jihad of Palestine and the Hashd al-Shaabi of Iraq. “We will do something for the IRGC to be known as the mother of international terrorism,” she said.

Liwa Fatemiyoun, or Fatemiyoun Brigade, and its Pakistani equivalent Zeynabiyoun are militia recruited by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) since 2014 from Shia Afghans and Pakistanis to fight in Syria alongside Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

While stressing that listing the IRGC as a terrorist organization is “only the first step” against the Iranian regime, Abir Al-Sahlani, representative of Sweden in the European Parliament, said the people of Iran have conquered the world with three words: Woman, Life, Freedom. The Iranian people deserve to enjoy basic human rights, freedom and democracy, she said.

Meanwhile, Charlie Weimers, a conservative member of the European Parliament who had been invited to join the Strasbourg rally as one of the speakers, in a tweet Sunday said his speech had been canceled by the organizers for “security reasons”. “Other speakers such as Abir Al-Sahlani, party colleague of the organizer, are not cancelled. I’m not going to lie. This is disappointing,” he wrote.

Some activists have criticized the cancelation of Weimers’ speech. “I have followed Weimers’ political activities for the past 20 years. He has always been the voice of the Iranians. Canceling his speech was a disappointment,” Arvin Khoshnood, a researcher of Iranian politics in Sweden, tweeted.

In his tweet, Khoshnood blamed Alireza Akhondi, a Swedish-Iranian member of the Swedish Parliament who organized Monday’s event in Strasbourg, for the cancellation. “Unity against the Islamic Republic is of outmost importance. Why exclude someone who can benefit the Iranian freedom cause?” he asked Akhondi.

Some social media users have alleged that Akhondi and other organizers canceled Weimers’ speech because he is well-known for supporting Iran's former crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, and they did not want Weimers to promote him in his speech.

“Charlie Weimers has been standing by the side of Iranians for a long time and on the right side of the history,” one of the critics tweeted. “His speech in Strasbourg was canceled because the enemies of Iran lost their mental security [for the fear of] him uttering the name Pahlavi,” he wrote.

Videos received by Iran International show that people chant anti-regime slogans, saying “We don’t want incompetent authorities!”

Reports say amid the natural gas crisis, the price of non-gas heating devices like oil heaters have increased sharply in the city in the Khorasan region where the town is located.

A citizen has told local media that due to the crisis he has to warm his children at home using a hair dryer.

Meanwhile, videos on social media show a long queue in Torbat-e Jam to buy kerosene.

Earlier, Oil Minister Javad Owji announced that the city's natural gas is still cut off.

On Monday, people in Torbat-e Jam also rushed to the Red Crescent building to get oil heaters. Videos show some agents prevented people from breaking into the facility.

Some other videos on social media show long queues in Sabzevar in the same province to fill liquid gas and picnic capsules.

Gas shortage, especially in three provinces of Razavi Khorasan, South Khorasan and North Khorasan, has caused many problems for people.

In order to resolve the gas crisis in Tehran and other cities, the Islamic Republic has shut down schools and offices.

Social media videos show numerous groups of Iranians from different countries who traveled to the headquarters of the European Parliament in the city that has a plenary session to debate the listing of the iRGC in a call already supported by at least 100 members of the body. The Parliament is composed of over 700 members. 

Busloads of people from the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark as well as several buses form the German cities of Hamburg, Frankfurt and Berlin departed early in the morning to arrive in time for the demonstration, chanting slogans against the IRGC along the way. 

An underground alliance of protester groups in Iran also welcomed and supported diaspora’s initiative. They have prepared posters and flyers to be distributed among the participants. “We wish to declare our full support for listing [the IRGC] as a terrorist organization by the international community,” United Youth of Iran, an underground alliance of revolutionary youth groups from various Iranian cities, said in a statement sent to Iran International. The group has criticized the IRGC’s suppression of protests in Iran, direct and indirect violation of human rights in other countries including Syria and Ukraine, and economic corruption including alleged involvement in drug and arms trafficking and money-laundering by the Guards. “The IRGC’s actions bring nothing but pain, death and corruption to the Middle East and the world,” the statement added.

Expressing support for the rally in Strasbourg, the Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims, which was shot down by the IRGC with two surface-to-air missiles as it was taking off from Tehran on January 8, 2020, said it has routinely demanded listing the IRGC in its entirety as a terrorist entity. Emphasizing that “the acts of terrorism committed by the IRGC are countless,” the Association said in a statement that “Today, with the people of Iran making their voices heard loud and clear in the Woman, Life, Freedom revolution, it is time that Europe recognize and declare the true terrorist nature of the IRGC.”

In a joint message, prominent opponents of the Islamic Republic have also urged the international community to list Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terror group. In a tweet published by exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi, football legend Ali Karimi, British-Iranian actress and human rights activist Nazanin Boniadi, journalist and activist Masih Alinejad, and actress Golshifteh Farahani they said, “our request for the international community is clear: put the IRGC on the terrorist list.”

According to some of the participants, time for appeasement of the Islamic Republic has come to an end, and now it is time for action against “the terrorist group” that is the key force to suppress the protesters in Iran and destabilize the region. 

During the past few weeks, a hashtag in support of the punitive measure against the IRGC -- #IRGCterrorists -- has been retweeted more than 13 million times by Iranians and foreigners alike. Some social media users have urged Syrians, whose country has been a playground for the IRGC, and Ukrainians whose Russian enemy uses the Iranian-made drones against them, to join the rally and support their cause.

The European Parliament cannot decide to designate the IRGC because the terrorists list is not a list decided by the Parliament itself but by the EU Council, comprised of ministers of each EU country. The members of the parliament are set to vote on a resolution about Iran that would call for the designation of the outfit. The resolution is on the agenda for Thursday and not for the Monday session. 

If the resolution garners enough support, it is then upon the national governments of the EU member states to make the final decision. The listing of the IRGC must have a unanimous vote by all 27 EU members in the EU Council. 

Members of the UK House of Commons on January 12 unanimously voted for a motion urging the UK government to proscribe the IRGC by listing it as a terrorist organization. Moreover, more than 60 French senators have officially requested that the EU close Iranian banks in Europe and ban the passage of Iran Air planes from European skies, as well as abandon the nuclear agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) completely.

Unlike the United States which in 2019 under President Donald Trump put the IRGC on its Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) list, European countries avoided the designation in the past few years and prioritized diplomacy with the Islamic Republic in the hope of concluding a nuclear deal.

Many politicians in France, Germany, and other European countries have been keen to pursue the IRGC’s designation by the EU and say that it has been long overdue.

Alireza Akhondi, a Swedish-Iranian member of the Swedish parliament who has been campaigning for the EU designation, said last week that listing the IRGC should be followed by tracing the organization’s money and blocking its money-laundering channels to weaken it. “Let’s rally together, united, and with a common mind to label IRGC as a terrorist organization. Sanctioning criminals is not enough! We need a resolution! Let's make the world a safer place to live in!” he said. 

Talks in Vienna to revive the deal, officially known as the JCPOA came to an abrupt stop in March 2022, reportedly for Iran’s insistence that the IRGC be removed from the US FTO list. Later talks elsewhere failed to bring about an agreement.

News that Iran is supplying Russia with kamikaze drones also angered the West and added to the antagonism against Tehran.

So far over 500 protesters have been killed by security forces, mainly consisting of the IRGC and its Basij militia. Four protesters have been executed so far by the state after hasty trials devoid of any regard for due process. Others are on death row.