On Saturday, as the protests entered their 50th day, Iranian media reported that President Ebrahim Raisi claimed that Iranian cities were “safe and sound” after what he described as a failed US attempt to repeat the 2011 Arab uprisings. Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish Iranian woman, died in September after being detained by morality police for violating strict dress codes for women. Since her death, Iran’s clerical leadership has sought to quell the protests that erupted in response.
In one of the worst waves of unrest to hit the nation since the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the US-backed shah, activists say hundreds of people, mostly protesters, have been killed. President Joe Biden supported protesters as Iranian authorities marked the anniversary of the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran by radical students, saying: “We will free Iran. It will be free very soon.”
Iranian news agencies quoted Raisi as telling a group of students on Friday: “The Americans and other enemies tried to destabilize Iran by implementing the same plans as in Libya and Syria, but they failed.” A popular uprising in Libya prompted NATO intervention in 2011, which resulted in the overthrow and assassination of Muammar Gaddafi by rebel forces. As opponents of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria faced widespread protests with force, the country descended into an 11-year-old conflict. Raisi, on the other hand, declared that Iranian cities are now “safe and sound” and vowed retaliation for the unrest the nation had experienced.
The other side of the story
By Friday, 314 protesters, including 47 minors, had been killed in the unrest, HRANA reported. In addition, 38 members of the security forces were killed. At least 14,170 people, including 392 students, were detained during protests in 136 cities and towns and 134 universities, the report said. The worst bloodshed occurred in Sistan-Baluchistan, a province in southeastern Iran that is home to a sizable Sunni Muslim minority.
Senior Sunni cleric Molavi Abdolhamid claimed that Khash in the country’s southeast received a harsher response to Friday’s protests than other parts of the country. “Should live ammunition be the answer to sloganeering and stone throwing? One wonders… why are protesting people being mercilessly massacred in this province?” the cleric asked in a statement on his website. Amnesty International estimated that up to 10 people may have died after security forces opened fire on protesters who allegedly attacked and threw stones at a government building.
Economic impact
Iran’s currency has hit new lows as a result of the crisis. The US dollar has fallen nearly 12% since the protests began and was trading at 362,100 rials on the black market on Saturday, according to foreign exchange website Bonbast.com. The government on Saturday allowed online sales by currency dealers to make it easier for people to buy hard currency, reportedly in an effort to slow the currency’s decline. According to state media, the Ministry of Intelligence said it had frozen the bank accounts of 2,300 people suspected of involvement in the currency black market and warned them they could face legal action.
