Protests broke out in several cities across Iran this week over rising prices and alleged corruption by President Hassan Rouhani.
• Conservative allies of the government branded the protestors as enemies of the state.
• Videos on social media show protestors shouting anti-government slogans, including “death to (President Hassan) Rouhani” and “death to the dictator.”
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DUBAI (Reuters) Dec. 30, 2017 – Iranian riot police dispersed protesters shouting anti-government slogans in the western city of Kermanshah on Friday, a day after similar protests in the country’s northeast, the semi-official news agency Fars reported.
The outbreak of regional unrest reflects growing discontent over rising prices and alleged corruption, as well as concern over the Islamic Republic’s costly involvement in regional conflicts such as Syria and Iraq.
The protests in Kermanshah, the main city in a region where an earthquake killed over 600 people in November, came a day after hundreds rallied in Iran’s second largest city Mashhad to protest against high prices and shout anti-government slogans.
Videos posted on social media showed demonstrators yelling, “The people are begging, the clerics act like God”.
Police arrested 52 people in Thursday’s protests, Fars quoted a judicial official as saying in Mashhad, one of the holiest places in Shi’ite Islam.
In social media footage, riot police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse crowds.
Purely political protests are rare in Iran, where security services are omnipresent. The last unrest of national significance occurred in 2009 when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election as president ignited eight months of street protests. Pro-reform rivals said the vote was rigged.
But demonstrations are often held by workers over layoffs or non-payment of salaries and people who hold deposits in non-regulated, bankrupt financial institutions.
Prominent conservative cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda called earlier for tough action against the protests.
“If the security and law enforcement agencies leave the rioters to themselves, enemies will publish films and pictures in their media and say that the Islamic Republic system has lost its revolutionary base in Mashhad,” the state news agency IRNA quoted Alamolhoda as saying.
“Death to dictator”
Some social media videos showed demonstrators chanting “Death to (President Hassan) Rouhani” and “Death to the dictator”. Protests were also held in at least two other northeastern cities.
Tehran backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his country’s civil war, Shi’ite militias in Iraq, Houthi rebels in Yemen and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah group.
Social media videos also showed demonstrators chanting “Leave Syria, think about us”, criticizing Iran’s military and financial support for Assad.
Mohsen Nasj Hamadani, deputy security chief in Tehran province, said on Friday any unauthorized protest would be “firmly dealt with”, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
Unemployment stood at 12.4 percent in this fiscal year, according to the Statistical Centre of Iran, up 1.4 percent from the previous year. About 3.2 million Iranians are jobless, out of a total population of 80 million.
