Latest update – 4:30 pm CET
Protests are continuing in Iran as the country’s economy continues to experience further crises as a result of the mullahs’ destructive policies. More people are taking to the streets as they are finding it extremely difficult to make ends meet, especially as the national currency, the rial, has plunged in value against the U.S. dollar.
People throughout the country are specifically holding the mullahs’ Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei responsible for their miseries, while also condemning the oppressive the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and paramilitary Basij units, alongside other security units that are on the ground suppressing the peaceful demonstrators.
Protests in Iran have to this day expanded to at least 282 cities. Over 750 people have been killed and more than 30,000 are arrested by the regime’s forces, according to sources of Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). The names of 664 killed protesters have been published by the PMOI/MEK.
Iranians hold major demonstration outside the EU's Brussels Headquarters calling on the body to:
—#BlacklistIRGC
—#ShutdownIranTerrorEmbassies https://t.co/yGddm8IdTu— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) March 20, 2023
Freedom-loving Iranians and supporters of the opposition PMOI/MEK rallied in Brussels on Monday for a large demonstration calling on the European Union to designate the regime’s IRGC as a terrorist organization, close the mullahs’ embassies in the Green Continent, and expel the regime’s agents from their soil.
This demonstration was held as the European Union Foreign Ministers were holding a meeting and discussing a range of issues, including Iran. Several Belgian and international dignitaries took part in the rally and delivered speeches in support of the Iranian people and their ongoing revolution, while also calling on the EU to blacklist the IRGC and shut down the Iranian regime’s embassies.
Freedom-loving Iranians and supporters of the #Iran opposition PMOI/MEK rallied in Brussels in a demonstration calling on the EU to #BlacklistIRGC and #ShutdownIranTerrorEmbassies.
"Death to the oppressor, be it the Shah or the oppressor!" they chanted.pic.twitter.com/6MkN63Xksu— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) March 20, 2023
In reports from the city of Ardabil in northwest Iran, courageous protesters attacked a building of the regime’s so-called “Foundation of Martyrs and Altruists” on Sunday night. The attack involved a major explosion as the Iranian people accuse this and other such regime institutions of taking advantage and harassing the families of victims and those left disabled of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war.
In news from Khuzestan Province, pensioners and retirees of the regime’s Social Security Organization in the cities of Ahvaz, Shush, and Shushtar of southwest Iran were rallying on Sunday and protesting high prices, poverty, corruption, inflation, poor living conditions and officials’ refusal to address their demands.
In Ahvaz, the provincial capital of Khuzestan, the protesters were chanting: “Our enemy is right here! They lie in saying it’s America!”
Pensioners and retirees are among the worst-hit segments of Iran’s society. They depend on government stipends to make ends meet, but the regime has refused to increase their pensions in correspondence with growing inflation and the depreciation of the national currency.
The government has long provided many hollow promises of increasing pensions. It was also supposed to settle unpaid pensions remaining from previous years. So far, it has yet to deliver on both demands.
Interestingly, the regime’s own media reported that The Social Security Investment Company (SHASTA), the financial institution that is supposed to fund retirees, has seen a significant increase in its profits in the past years. However, these profits have yet to materialize in the lives of pensioners and retirees.
March 19 – Ahvaz, southwest #Iran
Pensioners and retirees of the regime's Social Security Organization are protesting high prices, poverty, corruption, and…
"Our enemy is right here! They lie in saying it's America!" they were chanting.#IranProtests2023pic.twitter.com/iodrY3jaxj— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) March 19, 2023
Iranian opposition coalition NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi welcomed the new Iranian calendar new year, Nowruz, by hailing protesters inside the country and calling for an escalating anti-regime campaign.
“As the tick-tock of the clock synchronizes with the turn of the New Year, the resolute footsteps of protesters reflect a people determined to topple the yoke of religious tyranny. On this momentous occasion, we extend our heartfelt felicitations to the valiant people, who ardently seek to usher in the spring of freedom and pave the way for a new Iran, brimming with joy and prosperity,” the NCRI President-elect said.
As the tick-tock of the clock synchronizes with the turn of the New Year, the resolute footsteps of protesters reflect a people determined to topple the yoke of religious tyranny.
On this momentous occasion, we extend our heartfelt felicitations to the pic.twitter.com/X7CnKN6GSX… https://t.co/dx35T7uBLh— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) March 19, 2023
The protests in Iran began following the death of Mahsa Amini. Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, a 22-year-old woman from the city of Saqqez in Kurdistan Province, western Iran, who traveled to Tehran with her family, was arrested on Tuesday, September 13, at the entry of Haqqani Highway by the regime’s so-called “Guidance Patrol” and transferred to the “Moral Security” agency.
She was brutally beaten by the morality police and died of her wounds in a Tehran hospital on September 16. The event triggered protests that quickly spread across Iran and rekindled the people’s desire to overthrow the regime.
