Iran Focus

London, 02 Feb – Despite being the most repressive country in the Middle East and using absolute clerical rule to justify their medieval treatment of their citizens as the “will of God”, the Iranian mullahs were simply unable to stop the people from protesting.

The protests, which began in late December over the release of a draft budget that would divert money away from the poor and into the military, quickly spread from the big cities to the smallest villages in every province and took on an anti-regime sentiment that none has matched since perhaps 1979. Millions took to the streets to call for an end to the Regime and the removal of the mullahs, explicitly calling out President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Iran Focus

London, 01 Feb – The widespread protests in Iran have largely dissipated after a violent crackdown by the Iranian authorities, but the underlying issues that caused the protests still exist, so we should be wary of seeing this as an end to the Iranian people’s uprising.

One of the issues raised by the protesters was Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism and regional warfare (i.e. Syria, Lebanon and Yemen) and the money spent on this rather than on programmes to benefit the Iranian people (i.e. healthcare, education, employment). In response, the Ruling system pulled back some of its security forces from Syria, in order to suppress the protests.

Iran Focus

London, 31 Jan – Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has recently ordered that the Regime’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and its regular army must divest any commercial holdings not directly related to their mission.

At least, he did according to regime’s Defence Minister Amir Hatami. Many IRGC members have claimed that they’ve had no such orders, while also defending their control of at least one-third of the Iranian economy, and Khamenei’s office has not commented on the matter.