Tehran, Iran – Bolder protests are being seen in Iran amid a surge deployment of armed security officers as the government’s efforts to contain the crumbling economy collapse.
Images circulating online showed huge protests late Tuesday in the town of Abdanan in central Ilam province, where several major demonstrations have taken place over the past week.
Thousands of people, from children accompanied by their parents to the elderly, were filmed walking and singing in the streets of the small town as helicopters flew overhead. The protesters appeared to have greatly outnumbered the security personnel deployed to contain them.
In the provincial capital city of Ilam, videos showed security forces storming the Imam Khomeini Hospital to remove and arrest protesters, which human rights group Amnesty International said violated international law and showed once again “how far Iranian authorities are willing to go to crush dissent”.
The hospital became a target after the protests in Malekshahi county earlier this week, where multiple waves the demonstrators were shot as they gather at the entrance to a military base. Some injured protesters were taken to hospital.
Several graphic videos from the scene of the shooting circulating online showed people being sprayed with live fire and falling to the ground as they fled the gate. The local governor said the shooting is under investigation.
State media confirmed that at least three people were killed. They also announced on Tuesday that a police officer had been shot dead after armed clashes broke out following funeral processions for dead protesters.
In Tehran, numerous videos showed traders and business owners in the Grand Bazaar closing their shops, clashing with security forces in riot gear wielding batons and using tear gas.
People could be heard chanting “freedom” in the bazaar and shouting “dishonour” at the police. “Execute me if you want, I’m not a rioter,” one man shouted as he was pressed by security forces, to cheers and applause from the crowd.
“Show No Mercy”
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in his first reaction to this week’s protests that the rioters must be “put in their place”.
Meanwhile, Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said: “We will show no mercy to the rioters this time.”
The situation was equally tense in the streets and adjacent neighborhoods where the protests took place originally started by merchants on December 28. Several other major commercial areas in Tehran saw strikes and huge protests on Tuesday, including Yaftabad, where police were met with shouted slogans, “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon; my life for Iran.”
The Iranian government has been accused of providing support to armed groups in Gaza and Lebanon.
Several clashes were reported around Sina Hospital in central Tehran, but Tehran University of Medical Sciences said in a statement that tear gas canisters filmed inside the hospital complex were not thrown by security forces.
Demonstrations also took place in Lorestan and Kermanshah in the west; Mashhad in the northeast; Qazvin, south of the capital; Shahrekord city of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari in the southwest; and the city of Hamedan, where a woman was filmed braving a police water cannon in the winter cold.
A foreign human rights monitor opposed to Iran’s theocratic establishment claimed that at least 35 people have been killed in the protests so far. The Iranian state has not released casualty figures, and Al Jazeera could not independently verify any.
Shops are closed during protests in Tehran’s centuries-old main bazaar on Tuesday [Vahid Salemi/AP]
The cooking oil triples
The country continues to have one of the highest inflation rates in the world, especially when it comes to skyrocketing prices of essential food items.
The government of moderate President Masoud Pezeshkian says it is implementing plans to ensure the economic situation is contained, but a rapid decline continues.
The country’s embattled currency, the rial, traded at more than US$1.47 million on the Tehran open market on Tuesday another new all-time low which showed a lack of public and investor confidence.
The price of cooking oil saw by far the strongest price increase this week, more than tripling and falling further, far from Iran’s decimated middle class, which has seen its purchasing power shrink since 2018, when the US unilaterally abandoned the 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed tough sanctions.
The development comes after Pezeshkian presented a budget for Iran’s upcoming calendar year, starting at the end of March, that eliminated a subsidized exchange rate used for certain imports, including food.
Some economists hailed the rationale behind the move, which is elimination the subsidized exchange rate with rent distribution in an attempt to fight corruption, especially since the cheaper currency was only abused and failed to reduce food prices.
The move was expected to boost prices in the short term and face pushback from establishment interests who have benefited for years from the cheap currency. But the rise in oil prices was very sudden, prompting the government to announce official prices, although it remains to be seen whether the market will listen.
Using the resources to free itself from the removal of the cheaper subsidized currency, the government offered to allocate online credits, each worth 10 million riyals ($7 at the current exchange rate), to help people buy food.
Two well-known singers, Homayoun Shajarian and Alireza Ghorbani, joined the ranks of many people and online celebrities who said they would stop their professional activities, including scheduled concerts, in solemn observance and in support of the protests.
“How can our officials lay down their heads and sleep?” asked Ali Daei, a Iranian football legend and a respected national figure among the people, in a video interview released Tuesday that is going viral.
“Perhaps many of them are not even Iranian because they feel no sympathy for the Iranian nation.”