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Iran: Fourteenth day of nationwide protests following gas price hikes, fuel rationing

This report will be updated

Reporting by PMOI/MEK

Iran, November 28, 2019—The uprising in Iran is alive as reports continue into the fourteenth consecutive day on Thursday, November 27. Authorities are implementing conditions very similar to martial law in the Iranian capital Tehran and other cities following unprecedented unrests and protests by the Iranian people rising in at least 180 cities checkered across the country.

The network associated directly to the Iranian opposition PMOI/MEK inside the country confirms at least 450 people are accounted for as killed by regime authorities, along with over 4,000 people injured. Reports also show at least 10,000 protesters being arrested. The final statistics could unfortunately be far higher. Netblocks reported a gradual and calculated return of internet access in Iran. But Iranian authorities are planning a very severe clampdown on internet access across the country.

Protesters are specifically voicing political demands directly protesting the mullahs’ rule by strongly criticizing senior regime officials and the entire mullahs’ apparatus. In their slogans, protesters are demanding the toppling of the Iranian regime and placing their crosshairs on the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President Hassan Rouhani and the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as the root of the Iranian people’s ongoing miseries.

In different cities, Resistance Units, the network of MEK supporters and activists inside Iran, continued their activities despite the heavy presence of security forces. The resistance units installed banners of Iranian resistance leader Massoud Rajavi in different cities and posted quotes from the messages of the resistance leader, promising that the uprising will continue until the overthrow of the mullahs' regime.

In recent remarks, IRGC chief Hossein Salami pinpointed on the MEK’s role in the recent uprising. “The MEK has encouraged and activated various movements and currents, including the riots of July 1999, the 2009 sedition, the Dec 2017/Jan 2018 protests, and the recent unrest… the world arrogance [United States] attempted, through domestic critics, the MEK and so-called intellectuals, to strengthen these episodes of unrest,” he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo once again expressed his support for the Iranian people’s nationwide uprising.

“Our policy from the very inception of the administration is to deny the Iranian regime, the kleptocrats in charge of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the resources to foment terror and to, frankly, punish their own citizens as well, and to put their citizens at risk by underwriting Hizballah and Shia militias in Iraq,” Secretary Pompeo said.

“What you’ve seen in these past weeks is, frankly, a follow-on to what’s been going on at a low level for an awfully long time, is the Iranian people saying enough – enough of the kleptocracy; enough of the theocracy; enough of the imperialist bent around the world that’s putting our brothers’ and sisters’ lives at risk and denying us the capacity to simply live normal lives.

“It was triggered by a decision that the Islamic Republic of Iran leadership made about gas subsidies. They removed some of them, and that fomented significant political protests and protests against the regime leadership. You saw over the past – goodness, it’s been now a week – in response to that what the leadership in Iran did. They shut off the internet so that they could engage in activities essentially in the dark, without communications. And second, they instigated a political crackdown, where – while we can’t verify the numbers – international human rights organizations have said there were at least 100-plus that have been killed as a result of violence perpetrated by the Iranian regime. This is simply the Iranian people seeking freedom and economic success and a regime that’s denying those two things to them,” he explained.

Ivan Štefanec, a Member of the European Parliament from Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats), condemned the Iranian regime’s human rights violations and crimes against humanity during the recent uprising. The crimes carried out by the Iranian regime are considered crimes against humanity by any scale, he said. The main Iranian opposition has announced over 450 people have been killed in this nationwide uprising and these numbers could be far higher, this MEP continued. It is worth noting that Iranian opposition President Maryam Rajavi has called on the United Nations to immediately dispatch a fact-finding mission to Iran and that the mullahs’ senior officials must face justice for crimes against humanity, Mr. Štefanec emphasized.

Abolfazl Bahrami, a so-called “religious expert” in Iran, participated in an interview on state TV saying those participating in recent demonstrations must be tortured to death. “Those arrested should be punished and tortured to death in public,” he said as the mullahs’ state TV interviewed Bahrami with the goal of installing fear throughout the Iranian society. It goes without saying that the mullahs are the most corrupt regime in Iranian history and the Iranian people are committed to toppling them from their rule.

Reuters reported Iraqi protesters stormed and torched the Iranian regime’s consulate in Najaf, southern Iraq. This is the strongest expression of emotions against the Iranian regime by Iraqi protesters who have been in the streets for weeks now, the Reuters report added.

Iraqi protesters torching the Iranian regime’s consulate in Najaf

Iraqi protesters torching the Iranian regime’s consulate in Najaf

 

The National Union of Higher Education Unitary Trade Union Federation (SNESUP-FSU) in France expressed its support for the Iranian people’s protests, demonstration and nationwide uprising. The statement reads:

Since mid-November, thousands of Iranians have risen in a hundred cities against the policy of expensive living, corruption, and despotism of the mullahs' regime, which has imposed its theocratic power since 1979. Youth and students play a decisive role in these events.

Although the Iranian authorities have blocked the Internet, and the French media often relays the regime's propaganda, testimonies and images attest to the police and riot police using live ammunition against protesters. Despite this, protests continue across the country.

Tehran has been the scene of widespread attacks by repressive forces against young insurgents, including students of Tehran University.

These events take place in a context of social struggles of people from all walks of life (teachers, workers, retired people, etc.) and bullying targeting young people and women. Triggered by price increases, they now call into question the fundamentals of the mullahs' regime: barbaric repression (hanging, mutilations, corporal punishment), grid of daily life and police control of behavior, prohibition of cohabitation, punishment for offenses against dress codes, political control of the content of the teachings, especially at the university … The protests also target the absolute power of the Supreme Leader who chooses candidates for elections and confiscates wealth to finance wars (ballistic missiles, external interventions), … They are part of the perspective of a free and democratic Iran.

SNESUP-FSU strongly protests against the bloody repression of power. The number of victims would settle on the evening of November 24 to more than 300 deaths and 4000 wounded. The number of people arrested and detained by the regime since the beginning of the uprising to date in 165 cities has exceeded 10,000. The SNESUP-FSU demands the end of terror, the end of executions, the establishment in Iran of human rights, rights of expression and association, academic and trade union freedoms. It calls for the release of all political detainees, including the two researchers at Sciences Po Paris (CÉRI), the sociologist Roland Marchal and the anthropologist Fariba Adelkhah, incarcerated in Iran since June 2019 for "attacking state security ".

SNESUP-FSU calls to show active solidarity with the Iranian population faced with barbaric repression, especially with students and academics, and to participate in initiatives organized in France for this purpose.

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