Reporting by PMOI/MEK
Iran, October 16, 2020—Iran’s State Security Force (SSF) agents have recently been parading people in the streets, humiliating and torturing them psychologically in the open to intimidate and suppress the general population. However, this has rendered enormous public hatred and such anger was widely posted on various social media platforms.
Ali Zolghadri, commander of the Tehran Intelligence and Public Safety police, said that the police is on the offensive and will deal with thugs and hooligans.
The regime’s notorious judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi emphasized that the security of the regime is "an important and pivotal issue.”
“Those who wish to disrupt the security of our society belong in prison,” he said. “Executive and judiciary officials should never allow anyone to make the streets unsafe,” according to an October 11 report published in the state-run Hamdeli daily.
The regime’s SSF commanders say the purpose of such parading measures is to deal with thugs and hooligans. However, in reality they are torturing young people in public, seeking to instill fear in the population, control the explosive state of Iran’s society and prevent a new wave of nationwide protests.
“People want the SSF to deal with those who disrupts public order and security. The SSF has acted firmly, in dealing with those disrupting law and order,” said the Friday prayer imam of Babolsar, a city northern Iran, according to an October 10 report wired by the Youth Journalists Club news agency. This outlet is linked to the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).
“An analysis by security officials reveals footprints of support for anti-regime groups who are in exile,” said Majid Mirahmadi, deputy security assistant of the Armed Forces Headquarters. “Garrisons are to be set up in the provinces and cities to confront thugs and hooligans,” he said in his description of brave protesters, according to a report published by the state-run Tasnim news agency on October 2.
This security official described the humiliating public parading of youth as fulfilling the "main demand of the Supreme Leader" in "drying up the roots of insecurity" in Iran’s society. “Today, the issue of national security must be seriously pursued with a focus on combating thugs and hooligans,” he added.
With these criminal measures, the repressive forces are seeking to carry out so-called crime-prevention initiatives. This has been witnessed many times in the past and failed each time.
“Those who carry out such measures as a prevention think that intimidation can control crime while intimidation itself makes the crime more violent,” according to the Sharq daily in a piece published on October 11. “The same initiative was implemented 14 years ago, and people were humiliated and they were beaten in front of their family members. They recorded the scenes and broadcast them on national television, saying they wanted to create moral security and control crime. But what happened? After years … it did not bear any results.”
Regime security forces, known as the SSF, parade a young man in humiliating manner—Iran
More images of regime security forces parade a young man in humiliating manner—Iran
The regime seeks to justify its repression by portraying rebellious and young protesters as thugs while the real thugs are those who are covered by the government. Such individuals are used by regime officials to carry out many intimidating and repressive measures.
“According to the order of the supreme leader, we launched a cultural organization headquarters in the suburbs of Mashhad (a major city, eastern Iran) and many of the youth who were thugs due to poverty and deprivation became members of the local Basij force (a paramilitary group under the terrorist-designated IRGC command) through cultural work and they prevented many disturbances,” said Ahmad Alamalhoda, the Friday prayer imam in Mashhad, according to the regime’s official IRNA news agency on October 7.
According to state-media reports published in the 1990s, following major protests in the northeastern city of Mashhad and the town of Eslamshahr near Tehran, the regime’s security institutions reached the conclusion that “thugs” play important roles in quelling protests.
Senior IRGC general Hossein Hamedani, who was killed in the regime’s operations in Syria back in 2015, acknowledged that during the 2009 post-election uprising the regime used street gangs to suppress protests.
“We did an intelligence operation in Tehran. We controlled 5,000 of those present in the riots but were not members of any groups; they were thugs. When protesters issued calls for rallies, we controlled them in their homes and did not permit them to leave. Later, we recruited them. We concluded that if we want to create fighters, we need those who are familiar with knives and blades,” Hamadani said.
The IRGC also recruited the same thugs when the corps was first launched on April 22, 1979, just two months after the 1979 revolution.
In the current circumstances, the IRGC and SSF continue to recruit new members from such thugs. Plainclothes agents who attack the protesters and ordinary people during the uprisings of 2009, 2017, and the November 2019 nationwide protests were among these thugs and hooligans.
However, the current situation is very different from the past, and the regime is taking action at a time when Iran’s society is in an explosive state and these inhuman plans are resulting in more anger and hatred among the population vis-à-vis the regime more than ever before.
