Among the lies told by the Iranian regime’s President Ebrahim Raisi about an “economic growth up to five percent” in the coming Iranian year, which began on March 21, one of the most important points in his new year’s message was the admission about the regime’s concerns on its security being endangered by the people’s protests.
“The country’s security has the priority,” Raisi emphasized.
While the only supposed threat comes from the people and their resistance, Raisi’s insistence on protecting the country’s security only means more repression and an increase in executions.
Echoing the regime’s officials’ anxiety about the popular protests across Iran, Ghasem Rezaei, the deputy commander of the regime’s police force, spoke out, referring to Iranian youths as saboteurs, threatening the regime’s security, and warned that the regime has “more than 200,000 personnel assigned to security,” and that “more than 70,000 cars, motorcycles, boats, and helicopters are on standby in the streets, alleys, and borders.”
Threatening the youths, Rezaei added that the police is a “slashing sword for the malevolent, the norm-breakers and the security disruptors.”
However, in reality, none of the regime’s security measures and threats has had the outcome the regime expected. Over the past few years, we have seen many protests of varying sizes across the country, some of them were nationwide, and many have threatened the regime’s survival.
Therefore, such threats have only a propaganda purpose, and one of their goals, according to the regime’s media, is to seize the increasing number of weapons from the people, who are preparing themselves for a final showdown with the regime, especially following the November 2019 protests, which turned into a nationwide uprising that almost overthrew the regime.
While calling the youths and angry people thugs, Rezaei said that the police “will continue to collect the people’s illegal weapons so that people who own them feel insecure.”
The repetition of such useless threats by the regime highlights its weakness in confronting the people’s protests and shows that it is terrified of further acts of defiance, especially by the youths. As one of the regime’s senior clerics Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghaddam explained, “Protests and strikes by a segment of the society prompts other sectors to also start their protest movement.”
This is a situation in which the Iranian people have improved and changed their tactics to confront the regime, having learned from their past experiences. As a result, Iran is facing a widening gap between the people and the ruling, something that the regime fears the most.
On November 4, 2021, the state-run Ebtekar daily touched on this issue, writing, “Iran’s society acts independent of the governing political structure and has cut all its ties with it. As such, there is a disconnect between the population and the political structure. This rupture will inevitably lead to general instability.”
“That is why all of us riding on this ship should be concerned about the current situation, marked by indifference, despair, and the collapse of society amid rupture and instability. Otherwise, there will be no hope in the political body and the politicians,” the daily added.
On March 9, regime expert Amanollah Qaraei Moghaddam warned, “There is no doubt that if this situation continues, if not this year, the army of the hungry will explode in protest next year.”
