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Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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?????????????????????????????????????????????????Sunday, December 31, 2017
Government supporters rally in Iran as protests enter third day
Supporters of the regime and anti-government protesters clashed at the entrance to the University of Tehran
Iranians
chant slogans as they march in support of the government near the Imam
Khomeini grand mosque in Tehran on 30 December 2017 (AFP)
Saturday 30 December 2017
Thousands of government supporters held rallies across Iran on Saturday
to mark the end of pro-reform protests that shook the country in 2009,
as a third day of anti-government protests broke out across the coutnry.
State television showed a rally in Tehran and marchers in the
second-largest city of Mashhad carrying banners in support of Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Saturday's protesters vowed to defend the Iranian revolution against
outside forces including the US, Britain and Israel but also called on
Iranian officials to do more to tackle the country's economic woes,
according to the semi-official Fars news agency.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (AFP)
Planned in advance of the recent unrest, they mark the suppression of
anti-government protests in 2009, when the disputed re-election of
president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad triggered anti-government protests.
Following the announcement of the election results, supporters of
defeated candidates Mir-Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi took to the
streets, mainly in Tehran, in daily rallies alleging election fraud.
As authorities suppressed the rallies, counter-protests in support of
the revolution and against what was alleged as the foreign backing of
the defeated candidates swept across the capital later that year and
have been marked annually since.
The Iranian government warned people against further protests on
Saturday as anti-government demonstrations sparked by anger over an
array of economic problems reportedly entered a third day.
"We urge all those who receive these calls to protest not to participate
in these illegal gatherings as they will create problems for themselves
and other citizens," said Interior Minister Abdolrahman Rahmani Fazli.
Social media postings indicated that a third day of protests broke out
in cities including Tehran, Shahr-e Kord and Kermanshah, where a video
showed dozens of protesters booing after police announced on a
loudspeaker that any gathering would be illegal. The footage could not
be authenticated.
The semi-official news agency Fars said up to 70 students gathered in
front of Tehran University and hurled rocks at police. A social media
video showed them chanting "death to the dictator" in an apparent
reference to Khamenei.
Regime supporters, gathered at the university entrance responded with
"death to the sedititionists" and appear to have outnumbered the
anti-regime protestors, videos posted on social media show.
Mehr news agency said 300 to 400 protesters were still around the
university, causing the closure of nearby streets and heavy traffic
congestion.
The numbers appeared to be smaller than demonstrations seen across other
major towns and cities on Thursday and Friday, which had been sparked
by high living costs but quickly turned against the Islamic regime as a
whole.
State news channel IRINN said it had been banned from covering the
protests that spread from second city Mashhad on Thursday to hit several
towns and cities.
Mashhad was the site of demonstrations against the government on
Thursday, where hundreds of people protested against high prices and
shouted anti-government slogans.
Police arrested 52 people in Thursday's protests, according to a
judicial official in Mashhad, one of the holiest places in Shia Islam.
On Friday, police dispersed anti-government demonstrators in the western
city of Kermanshah as protests spread to Tehran and several other
cities in the largest wave of demonstrations in nearly a decade.
Many reports of peaceful protests by Iranian citizens fed up with regime’s corruption & its squandering of the nation’s wealth to fund terrorism abroad. Iranian govt should respect their people’s rights, including right to express themselves. The world is watching! #IranProtests
The US State Department said in a statement that it condemned "the arrest of peaceful protesters".
US President Donald Trump tweeted that Iranians were "fed up with
regime's corruption & its squandering of the nation's wealth to fund
terrorism abroad" and warned Iran that "The world is watching!"
Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi dismissed Trump's comments as "irrelevant" and "opportunistic".
Rising prices, foreign wars
The recent unrest reflects discontent over rising prices and alleged
corruption, as well as concern over Iran's costly involvement in wars in
Syria and Iraq.
The Revolutionary Guards, which along with its Basij militia spearheaded
a crackdown against protesters in 2009, said in a statement carried by
state media that there were efforts to repeat that year's unrest but
added: "The Iranian nation ... will not allow the country to be hurt."
Prominent conservative cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda called earlier for tough action against the protests.
"If the security and law enforcement agencies leave the rioters to
themselves, enemies will publish films and pictures in their media and
say that the Islamic republic system has lost its revolutionary base in
Mashhad," the state news agency IRNA quoted Alamolhoda as saying.
Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri, a close ally of President Hassan
Rouhani, suggested that hardline conservative opponents of the
pragmatist president might have triggered the protests but lost control
of them.
"Those who are behind such events will burn their own fingers," state media quoted him as saying.
The protests spread to at least half a dozen cities on Friday, with some
attracting hundreds of protesters and others thousands, the BBC reported. In some cities police in riot gear and on motorbikes clashed with demonstrators.
Social media footage of the protests showed protesters chanting "death
to Rouhani" and "death to the dictator". Other videos showed chants of
"leave Syria, think about us," as protesters criticised Iran's military
and financial support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Protesters in Kermanshah shout "death to dictator" #iranprotests