Khamenei Delivers Speech Without Mentioning Current Protests
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei delivered a speech to an Islamic gathering in Tehran on Friday speaking about regional issues without mentioning the current protests.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei delivered a speech to an Islamic gathering in Tehran on Friday speaking about regional issues without mentioning the current protests.
Marking the birthday of Prophet Mohammed, Khamenei spoke at an Islamic conference that Tehran organizes annually by inviting clerical and religious figures from its orbit of influence in different countries.
Khamenei who has twice recently mentioned the nationwide protests rocking Iran saying that they were “minor events”, focused on the issue of Islamic unity from the perspective of the Islamic Republic.
The 83-year-old cleric who has ruled Iran for 33 years, said the establishment of relations with Israel by some Arab countries was “the biggest treason” and it is not possible to create unity with them.
Khamenei who is presented by his clerical regime as “the leader of Muslims” has some influence among Shiites who are a small minority among Muslims, but not among Sunnis, many of whom regard the Shia sect as a deviation from the true religion.
Khamenei also praised Iran’s efforts in helping Palestinian groups confronting Israel and said that the Islamic Republic stood up against world powers and can be an example to other Muslims.
He reiterated his support for the “Resistance Front”, a term coined by Tehran to refer to militant groups in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and elsewhere that enjoy its financial and military assistance.
The group calling itself Tehran Youth (Javanan-e Tehran) mobilized thousands of protesters in several towns and cities on Saturday and Wednesday through social media at a time of serious internet disruptions.
In their latest statement, Tehran Youth have called on people in Tehran and other cities to gather after midday Saturday “in all places where mercenaries and repression forces are not present” to chant “Down with the Dictator”.
Sources in Tehran say security forces are now continually present in all busy streets and squares to prevent people from convening to protest and do not let any pedestrian stop even for a short time. Footage of recent protests generally shows smaller, mobile groups that join together, chant, and separate again in a flash-mob style whenever they find a chance.
The mobility of protesters and their distribution in various neighborhoods, however, has now turned into a big problem for the security forces who are seen in some videos aimlessly running around to confront protesters and exhausting themselves even more after long hours of deployment.
Tehran Youth have stressed “neighborhood-centered presence” of protesters in their statement to minimize harm and casualty among protesters. “The best [Internet] anti-blockage tool now is [presence] on the streets,” they said referring to the internet curfew that sometimes turns into total blackout.
Observers in Tehran say the movement to overthrow the Islamic Republic, as protesters’ slogans indicate, has yet not grown to its full potential and that currently it is the younger generation that is carrying both the burden of the protests and the brunt of the violence.
Security forces have violently cracked down on students in various universities and arrested hundreds. They have targeted the students both inside the universities and outside. Footage posted on social media Wednesday showed a female student outside Tehran University whose eye was seriously injured with a steel pellet directly aimed at her.
“They have managed to scare the students into silence in some universities in the past few days, but the anger is there like burning coals under ashes. It can resurface any minute,” a student from Tehran’s Amir-Kabir University told Iran International.
Authorities claim that the protesters are only a minority in the Iranian society and that most Iranians are supportive of the establishment. “It is true that the numbers on the streets is not really huge but dissent is overwhelming in magnitude. The momentum is growing by the day like an avalanche,” a source in Tehran who asked not to be named said.
The Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) has dictated such strict censorship guidelines to the media that one would think nothing at all has been happening in the country if they looked at frontpages of newspapers.
Authorities are hoping that by internet and media censorship they can limit people’s sources of information to state and and IRGC-linked media which accuse protesters of rioting and destruction of public property without any mention of the violence against them.
“The media crisis in the Islamic Republic has turned into a national security crisis the continuation of which will be costly to the system and the country,” Elias Hazrati, managing director of the reformist Etemad newspaper warned the SNSC Secretary, Ali Shamkhani, in an open letter Wednesday. “Let domestic media report freely,” he wrote.
Thursday marked the 28th consecutive night of protests in Iran with videos on social media showing people blocking roads to stop the movement of riot police in the city of Mahabad, in West Azarbaijan province, and gunshots and teargas reported in Ahvaz in the southwestern Khuzestan province, while several neighborhoods in capital Tehran are scenes of violent skirmishes between people and government forces.
The protest rallies in Tehran were not limited to a specific area as people from the northern or southern neighborhoods were participating in the demonstrations with slogans against the regime and the Supreme Leader while many people were chanting slogans from rooftops.
The Youth of Tehran Neighborhoods, an anonymous group that helped organize rallies in the capital in the past four weeks, called for another nationwide protests on Saturday, October 15.
Sporadic clashes were also reported from Karaj, a city near Tehran known for its youths’ resistance against the security forces.
Security forces were present in huge numbers in the streets of Kermanshah and Sanandaj, which were witnessing violent clashes in the past few days, with reports of several casualties from both sides.
According to videos, protests have also been held in the cities of Arak, Ilam and Bukan in West Azarbaijan province. Baneh and Saqqez – the hometown of Mahsa Amini -- in Kordestan province were also hotbeds of protests on Thursday night with people having built up big fires on main streets, although little footage is available from due to internet disruption by the government.
While Internet access was shut off or significantly slowed down in many cities, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk – who had earlier promised to activate satellite internet system Starlink for Iranians – said “there are some active terminals” in Iran.
As the uprising -- sparked by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, is entering its second month -- the movement, which many now refer to as a revolution, has not yet found a leader the majority would recognize. Since the early days of the Islamic Republic, the clerical leadership has consistently eliminated political parties, free media, and anyone who could possibly be in a position to lead the opposition. This has manifested itself in the biggest characteristic of the current movement which is spontaneous and has no leader.
Some pundits warn that without a leadership the movement which has chosen “Women, Life, Liberty” as its motto may fail to achieve its goal of overthrowing the Islamic Republic, and to sustain its achievement if it succeeds. Others say lacking a known leader makes it much harder for the establishment to suppress the movement.
In addition to protests in Iran, there are large rallies outside the Islamic Republic’s missions around the world, with people in some cities trying to enter the consulates and embassies to remove the flag of the Islamic regime and in some cases, police were forced to intervene.
Despite reports that Tehran is sending out letters to EU diplomats, claiming that "bilateral relations may not survive" as the EU moves to penalize Iran for killing protesters, the uprising is garnering more and more support among Western government officials and politicians.
“If Europe misses taking the nuances of the current situation into consideration, the ramification will be grave and the bilateral relations may not survive it,” warned one letter — sent to a group of EU ambassadors and seen by POLITICO. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Wednesday received a similar letter from Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
According to the Center for Human Rights in Iran, the arrests and interrogations of school children accused of joining nationwide protests in Iran and their detention in so-called “psychological centers” has raised fears of more child killings while at least 28 children were reported to be killed by the Islamic Republic’s repression machine since the protests began in mid-September.