Reporting by PMOI/MEK
Iran, March 24, 2021—People in the city of Gonbad Kavus in northeast Iran took to the streets on Tuesday protesting the raping and sexual harassment of two small kids by a security guard at the Golestan Dam.
The families of two seven- and eight-year-old girls had filed a judicial complaint and pressed charges of rape against the security guard. In response the regime’s public prosecutor in Gonbad Kavus claimed “the forensics report has denied any sign of rape” and said the accused security guard has been summoned and after questioning has been charged with “kidnapping.”
March 23 – Gonbad Kavus, northeast #Iran
Angry locals took to the streets and clashed with State Security Forces after a judge cleared a security from charges of raping two small kids.
The parents and locals were protesting this decision.#IranProtestspic.twitter.com/xdOSSkHp4e— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) March 23, 2021
Following these remarks by the regime’s public prosecutor locals of the Arab Sorrank village took to the streets in protest. As units of the regime’s State Security Forces (SSF) were dispatched to the scene the angry protesters began throwing rocks and breaking the windshield of an SSF vehicle. Other locals were scene holding a protest rally at 5 pm local time outside the regime’s public prosecutor’s office. Authorities also dispatched anti-riot units to Gonbad Kavus in a desperate attempt to quiet the rallies and prevent these protests from expanding to neighboring cities and towns.
Throughout 2020 and even in the early months of 2021, social protests in Iran by people from all walks of life, including workers, teachers, nurses, retirees, farmers, and other branches of the society have continued across the country.
Not a single day passes where people do not voice their anger through chants targeting specifically the regime’s policies and officials. In response, and as expected, not once has the regime provided any positive reaction to the logical demands raised by protesters. This is only increasing the already expanding rift between the people and mullahs’ establishment and is further fueling the fire in the ashes of Iran’s society that many experts describe as a powder keg one the verge of explosion.
Despite the regime going the distance in its efforts to prevent protests through intensifying oppressive measures and literally leaving the people defenseless against the coronavirus outbreak, the fact that protests are continuing across Iran are further proof that the Iranian society is on the verge taking on a new uprising far more powerful than the November 2019 nationwide protests. Various state media are constantly posting various criteria warning about the looming and undeniable threats of new uprisings. “More than ever before widespread protests are portraying a very dark outlook,” according to a March 14 piece published in the regime’s Sharq newspaper.
As Iranians welcome the new Persian year, 1400, the mullahs’ regime remains unable to resolve the escalating economic, social, political, and international crises, and sooner or later is doomed to fall. Episodes of the recent Sistan and Baluchistan province uprising and these protests in Gonbad Kavus are a prelude of what is yet to come.
Footage of clashes between locals and the regime’s security forces in Gonbad Kavus, northeast Iran – March 23, 2021
