On Sunday, dozens of Iranian cities saw mass protests by retirees, who are demanding that their pensions be increased in line with inflation, and literacy movement teachers, who are angry about their terrible living conditions; all of which is all down to the corruption of the mullahs.
During the demonstrations, held in Arak, Ahvaz, Ardebil, Borujerd, Isfahan, Ilam, Kermanshah, Karaj, Kerman, Khorramabad, Lahijan, Mashhad, Shiraz, Tehran, and Tabriz, protesters called on the public to boycott the presidential elections.
Despite the presence of the State Security Force (SSF) and Plainclothes agents, who tried desperately to break up the gatherings, the protesters gathered and chanted:
- “We will not vote anymore; we have heard too many lies”
- “We will not rest until we get our rights”
- “We will not leave until we reach our demands”
As the regime becomes more engulfed with crises, both at home and abroad, protests in Iran are growing in size and scale. At the same time, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei says that Iran will soon hold its “most sensitive elections”, which is why he called for unity amongst the mullahs, but in spite of this, factional infighting has increased.
This has led to a critical state where officials and the state-run media warn constantly that another major protest is imminent because of all the issues that the people are facing, but still, the mullahs do nothing to fix the problem, so people might explode at any minute.
What are some of these issues? Well the Ebtekar daily laid it out on Sunday as:
- lack of transparency
- belligerence
- weak foreign policy
- inflation
- negative economic outlook
- currency repression
- mistrust by the people
- regional adventurism
- no central bank independence
The Mardom Salarie daily wrote that “people’s livelihood is turning to a major economic and social catastrophe”, while the Jahan-e Sanat said that the “Iranian people’s economic misery is a very deep well, and [the presidential] candidates are only digging it deeper”.
One of Iran’s apologists Sadegh Ziba Kalam said: “Why are people disappointed? Why are the youth frustrated? Why is there unemployment? Why is there economic insecurity? Candidates act as they were not chief executives, mayors, governors, judiciary chief or not the parliament’s speaker.”
As the rulling theocracy faces more protest from all around, even from communities that traditionally supported them, they will continue to use violence to stop these protests and maintain a semblance of control because if they practised caution, it would still lead to more protests. Simply, protests will continue and an major protests will come, no matter what the government does.
