Latest update – 8:30 pm CET
Iran’s protests are continuing as more people are taking to night rallies to voice their hatred of the mullahs’ regime and intent to overthrow their rule. These measures include increasing reports of people burning propaganda billboards and posters of regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, writing anti-regime slogans in graffiti, and launching attacks using Molotov cocktails targeting various regime-affiliated sites, mostly bases of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) paramilitary Basij units. Statues and posters of former IRGC Quds Force chief Qassem Soleimani have also been constantly targeted in these attacks.
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 the Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). The names of 637 killed protesters have been published by the PMOI/MEK.
All the while, the country is gripping with freezing cold temperatures and the regime is too incompetent to provide even heating gas to tens of millions of people across the country. Iran has the world’s second-largest natural gas reserves and yet the Iranian people in cities throughout the country are seen waiting in lines for cooking/heating gas, and kerosene, and posting videos from their homes and stores showing the severe gas shortage. All the while, the regime’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, has been on a Middle East tour visiting the mullahs’ allies and pledging to provide for their energy needs.
On Monday morning, people in the city of Torbat-e-Jam are rallying outside the local governor’s office protesting the continued gas shortage and the fact that their families are freezing in the winter cold. People in this city of northeast Iran, like many others across the country, have also been in long lines to purchase kerosene on this fifth consecutive day of the gas shortage crisis.
People in this city were also seen gathering outside a local Red Crescent branch seeking electric and kerosene heaters. There are also reports of regime authorities dispatching numerous security units into the streets to prevent any possible anti-regime protests as anger among locals is escalating.
After nightfall protesters grew in numbers outside the governor’s office and the regime’s Red Crescent branch. The local protesters began chanting anti-regime slogans, including “Death to Khamenei!” Authorities responded by dispatching more security units to the scene and even opening fire on the protesters. Some reports indicate that at one point the protesters were able to take control of the Red Crescent branch, parallel to setting up roadblocks in a number of the city streets.
January 16 – Torbat-e-Jam, northeast #Iran
People are rallying outside the local governor's office protesting the continued gas shortage and the fact that their families are freezing in the winter cold.#IranProtests pic.twitter.com/uTQp6wDZOq— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) January 16, 2023
In Shush of Khuzestan Province in southwest Iran, retirees and pensioners of the regime’s Social Security Organization gathered on Monday and were protesting low pensions and poor economic conditions. Regime officials refrain from addressing the pensioners’ demands. The protesters complain that their meager pensions are not nearly enough to cover their most basic expenses and are often delayed for several months.
January 16 – Shush, southwest #Iran
Retirees and pensioners of the regime's Social Security Organization protesting low pensions and poor economic conditions.#IranProtests pic.twitter.com/phwftCKbfw— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) January 16, 2023
In the city of Sanandaj, the capital of Kurdistan Province, locals gathered for a ceremony to honor the 40th day of Houman Abdullahi’s murder by the regime’s oppressive security forces. The crowd were seen chanting anti-regime slogans, including:
“Death to Khamenei!”
“Death to the dictator!”
“No to monarchy! No to [mullahs’ regime]! Democracy and quality!”
January 16 – Sanandaj, western #Iran
Locals gathered to mark the 40th day of Houman Abdullahi's murder by security forces began chanting:
"No to monarchy! No to [mullahs' regime]! Democracy & equality!"#IranRevolution#مرگ_بر_ستمگر_چه_شاه_باشه_چه_رهبرpic.twitter.com/yu1J1RsM0r— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) January 16, 2023
In Tehran, family members of death row inmates rallied on Monday outside the regime’s judiciary building protesting the death sentences and demanding answers from regime officials. This is the second such rally held recently as family members of various inmates travelled from across the country to hold a gathering on January 14 in the country’s capital where children were seen holding placards reading: “Don’t execute my dad!”
January 16 – Tehran, #Iran
Family members of death row inmates rallied outside the regime's judiciary building protesting the death sentences and demanding answers from regime officials.#StopExecutionsInIran #IranRevolution2023 pic.twitter.com/6OzzqcHmsq— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) January 16, 2023
On Sunday morning, non-industrial workers in the port city of Bandar Mahshahr in Khuzestan Province, southwest Iran, launched a strike and were demanding answers from officials to their outstanding issues that have gone ignored for too long.
Workers of a petrochemical site of the OCDC company in Gachsaran of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province in southwest Iran held a gathering on Sunday and went on strike, protesting for answers to their long-raised demands.
In Golestan Province, northeast Iran, hundreds of people have rallied outside the home of Molana Gergich, a senior figure of the local Baloch community, to prevent authorities from transferring following his summoning by the regime’s Special Clerics Court.
January 15 – Golestan Province, northeast #Iran
Hundreds of people rallied outside the home of Molana Gergich, a local Baloch community leader, to prevent his transfer to the regime's Special Clerics Court where he has been summoned.#IranRevolution2023 pic.twitter.com/D62BYdB3c9— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) January 15, 2023
Iranian opposition coalition NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi called on the international community to take urgent action and blacklist the mullahs’ IRGC as a terrorist organization, a measure which should have been adopted many years ago.
“I stressed years ago that IRGC is the clerical regime’s main tool for the suppression and plunder of the people of Iran, and export of terrorism. Blacklisting the IRGC as a terrorist entity is an urgent demand of the Iranian people, a prerequisite to peace in the Middle East, and indispensable to the fight against terrorism. Blacklisting the IRGC should have been done years ago,” the NCRI President-elect emphasized.
Blacklisting of the IRGC as a terrorist entity is an urgent demand of the Iranian people, a prerequisite to peace in the Middle East, and indispensable to fight against terrorism. #BlacklistIRGC should have been done years ago.
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) January 16, 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.
