Mediaboss Marketing

Protesters took to the streets shortly after the government announced an increase in fuel prices by as much as 300%. Social media images showed banks, petrol stations and government buildings set ablaze by rioters. Some protesters chanted "down with Khamenei," according to videos, referring to the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In other countries where nationwide protests have rattled the political elite -- such as Iraq and Lebanon -- social media has played a key role in mobilizing protesters. It is unclear if Iranian authorities will succeed in quelling the demonstrations by depriving them of this crucial protest tool.

Protests in Iran have been a long time coming. Popular discontent over the country's leadership has brewed for years as economic conditions continued to worsen, causing nationwide protests to erupt between December 2017 and January 2018.

Since May 2017, US President Donald Trump has unleashed several rounds of sanctions that have crippled Iran's economy, causing its currency to tank, prices to spiral, and trigger shortages in food and medical equipment. As people's living conditions worsened, many Iranians blamed US sanctions for their woes, but also criticized corruption that they believe is widespread among Iran's clerical leadership.

Last Friday, a government announcement about fuel price hikes -- between 50% and 300% -- appeared to be the straw that broke the camel's back. Large numbers of protesters took to the streets in urban centers across the country.

How have authorities responded?

Several protesters have been killed in the demonstrations, according to government officials. Khamenei, who has backed the fuel price hikes, has blamed the riots on external forces.

"The counter-revolution and Iran's enemies have always supported sabotage and breaches of security and continue to do so," Khamenei said in a live speech on state TV on Sunday. "Unfortunately, some problems were caused, a number of people lost their lives and some centers were destroyed."

Khamenei is the final arbiter on decision-making in Iran. Despite the protests, he said the fuel price increase "must be implemented" while urging officials not to raise the price of other commodities.

Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli has warned that security forces will act against protesters if "vandalism" continues.

What is the US' stance on the protests?

The White House has publicly supported the protests. A statement on Sunday from the Trump administration condemned Tehran's use of "lethal force and severe communications restrictions" and chastised the government that "abandons its people and embarks on a crusade for personal power and riches."

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also tweeted his "support" for the protests on Saturday.

Washington's reaction echoes Trump's response to the protests two years ago when he called for "change" and denounced Tehran for "failing at every level."

Tehran has, in turn, dismissed the US comments as "hypocritical," highlighting US sanctions as a key driver of the country's economic role.

"It seems weird to see sympathizing with a nation suffering from the US' economic terrorism and the same person who has already said that the Iranian people should be starved to surrender," said Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi, according to state-owned ISNA news agency.

When Trump pulled out of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran in May 2017, he unveiled his "maximum pressure" campaign which sought to extract major political concessions from Iran through an extreme economic squeeze.

Pompeo initially rolled out a list of 12 demands to restrain what the US calls Tehran's "malign activities" in the region. But since then, Trump appeared to backtrack, recently saying that he aimed only to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Iran suspended its uranium enrichment activities after signing a landmark agreement with the Obama administration in 2015. But since May 2018 -- a year after Trump reimposed sanctions on the country -- Iran has taken several steps away from its compliance with the nuclear accord.

Are Iran's demonstrations related to other regional protest movements?

Rapidly deteriorating economic conditions in Iraq, Lebanon and Iran have meant that the protesters have a clear common cause. But the similarities may go beyond economy. Both Iraq and Lebanon are in Iran's sphere of influence, and protests against the status quo could weaken Tehran's sway in both countries.

In Iraq, the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Units, which wield significant political influence, have responded violently to protesters. Hundreds have been killed in those protests. In Lebanon, Hezbollah initially suggested protests there were part of an international conspiracy against the Iranian-backed militant and political group. But Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has since backed the anti-corruption protesters in recent speeches.

Last month, Khamenei accused US and Western intelligence services of "spreading turmoil" in Iraq and Lebanon. He also recalled Iran's response to its 2018 protests, praising the armed forces for "neutralizing" "similar plans" for Iran.

It is unclear whether the protests will do lasting damage to Iran's standing in the region, but its response -- from force to internet blackouts -- suggests that the unrest has unnerved Tehran.

Read the original:
Iran's 'largest internet shutdown ever' is happening now. Here's what you need to know - CNN

In Islamshahr, a small working-class city, crowds attacked a billboard of Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Posts on social media showed that they had set it ablaze.

While insulting the supreme leader is an offense that can carry the death penalty, people did not seem to care.

We are fed up, they chanted.

In cities including Behshahr, Shiraz, Tehran and Karaj, protests turned violent when people attacked government buildings, set banks on fire, ripped the national flag and kicked and burned revolutionary monuments.

The police and demonstrators exchanged gunfire on Friday in Sirjan, a city some 500 miles southeast of Tehran, an Interior Ministry official there told state television.

The state-run IRNA news agency said protesters tried to set fire to the oil depot, The Associated Press reported. It quoted the official, Mohammad Mahmoudabadi, as saying, They insisted on reaching the oil depot and creating crises.

Around Iran, anti-riot police officers and security forces battled crowds on motorcycles and on foot, videos on social media and local news outlets showed. These accounts showed that in Karaj, a young man was shot in the head, while in Shiraz, security forces shot a young man, who collapsed to the ground, bleeding.

They are firing on the people, shouted the narrator of the video from Shiraz, his hands shaking as he documented the scene.

The rest is here:
Protests Incited by Gas Price Hike Grip Iran - The New York Times

Less than a week since the Iranian government hiked gasoline prices by dozens of percentage points, the regime is at the lethal phase of quashing the demonstrations. While an internet blackout has greatly impeded the flow of information among protest groups and between them and the outside world, more than 100 people are thought to have been killed, with some reports putting the figure as high as 200, and thousands injured or detained.

Reports relying on sources in the Basij, the volunteer forces of the Revolutionary Guards, tell of training exercises to suppress protests. They also say the Guards are on high alert and might deploy armored vehicles in cities.

At the beginning of the week the government apparently still thought it could calm the public; for example, by handing money directly to the 20 million or so needy Iranians as compensation for price rises. But now the leadership seems to realize that its facing the threat of an all-out civil insurrection, as the protests spread to about 100 cities amid the burning of banks and government offices, damage to schools of Islamic studies, and slogans and graffiti demanding death to Rohani, death to Khamenei.

While such phenomena happened during the major protests of 2009 and 2017-18, this time the government is having a hard time distinguishing between reformists and conservatives, and thus separating those it calls loyal to the revolution from those it deems domestic enemies operated by the United States, Israel and the arrogant forces of the West.

At the beginning of the protests, demonstrations broke out in Tehrans neighborhoods that are racked by poverty. But within three days they had spread to north Tehran, Shiraz, Yazd and Isfahan, as students, young people and middle-class folks march together. The head of the Revolutionary Guards has said the response to protests will be decisive and revolutionary, while the editor of Kayhan, a daily controlled by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has demanded that the regime execute the protesters. This reflects the tension, not to say panic, among the regimes leaders.

In contrast to 2009, when it was clear who was leading the protests and who the protesters were, this time, like last year, there are no known leaders with a cogent ideology or clear political strategy. This means that even if the regime is willing to negotiate with the protesters, as it did with striking teachers, truck drivers and protesting government factory workers, there is currently no clear group that it can neutralize to achieve calm.

And a violent suppression can entangle the regime even more by possibly bringing other sectors of society into the protest. One danger is that the Basij volunteers, many of them from poor neighborhoods and some who were forced to volunteer if they wanted a job, will leave the organization and join the protest.

We've got more newsletters we think you'll find interesting.

Please try again later.

The email address you have provided is already registered.

The regimes legitimacy is compromised further by the unified front presented by Khamenei, President Hassan Rohani and Chief Justice Ebrahim Raisi, who have fully backed the governments decision to raise taxes. In doing so, they have increased the sense of alienation and hostility for the leadership.

In previous protests, Rohani came out against the use of force and said people had the right to nonviolent protest. He even accused certain religious institutions and the Revolutionary Guards of graft. This time, Rohani has remained silent despite the shooting at protesters and the many casualties. The deep economic crisis and the lack of a political will to implement the economic reforms Rohani wanted have trapped him in a dead end where only a dramatic step like a hike in gas prices could help plug the budget deficit that has reached 8 percent of GDP.

Of course, the regime could reverse its decision to raise taxes, or do so gradually over a year, but such a decision would mean not only giving in to the publics demands, but deviating from the strategy of resistance economics that Khamenei has said is the way to overcome the steamroller of sanctions. Thus, suppression of the protests is necessary ideologically, not only politically. Meanwhile, the regime is relying on experience and is certain that this time too it will be able to quash the protests before they become a dangerous civil insurrection.

Read the original:
Iran's attempts to quell protests bring them closer to the boiling point - Haaretz

(This Nov 18 story corrects Liz Cheneys title to representative from senator in eighth paragraph.)

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo answers questions during a news briefing at the State Department in Washington, U.S., November 18, 2019. REUTERS/Yara Nardi

By Daphne Psaledakis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Monday it will no longer waive sanctions related to Irans Fordow nuclear plant after Tehran resumed uranium enrichment at the underground site.

The right amount of uranium enrichment for the worlds largest state sponsor of terror is zero ... There is no legitimate reason for Iran to resume enrichment at this previously clandestine site, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters.

The U.N. atomic watchdog and Iran itself said this month Tehran is again enriching uranium at the sensitive site, which Iran hid from U.N. non-proliferation inspectors until its exposure in 2009. [nL8N27R5MN]

While European countries have tried to salvage the 2015 nuclear nonproliferation agreement, Iran has increasingly distanced itself from the accord since the United States withdrew last year.

The pact requires Iran to restrain its enrichment program in exchange for the removal of most international sanctions, and it called for Fordow to be converted into a nuclear, physics and technology center.

Despite its withdrawal, the Trump administration has granted sanctions waivers that allowed foreign firms to do work in Iran that advanced non-proliferation. Those included Russias Rosatom at Fordow.

Pompeo said the waivers will end on Dec. 15. The State Department had said last month that it renewed waivers for 90 days.

Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham and Representative Liz Cheney praised the decision and called on the Trump administration to also end the waiver for the Arak heavy water reactor, where Chinese state-owned China National Nuclear Corp has operated.

There is no justification for extending that waiver in light of recent confirmation that Iran is violating its heavy water obligations, let alone for letting Iran continue to build up its program not at Fordow, and not at Arak, the senators said in a statement.

Kelsey Davenport, director of the Arms Control Association, said Mondays decision could further jeopardize the nuclear accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

This step further risks collapsing the JCPOA because it removes a tangible benefit to Iran under the deal, Davenport said.

Pompeo also called on Iran to end violence against protesters, as demonstrations have spread across the Islamic Republic since Friday. Irans powerful Revolutionary Guards warned on Monday of action if unrest over gasoline price hikes does not cease. At least 100 banks and dozens of buildings and cars have been torched, state media reported.

We condemn strongly any acts of violence committed by this regime against the Iranian people and are deeply concerned by reports of several fatalities, Pompeo said.

Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu, Matt Spetalnick, Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Grant McCool and Cynthia Osterman

Go here to see the original:
U.S. to no longer waive sanctions on Iranian nuclear site - Reuters

The protests began last Friday, and before the weekend was over, the Islamic Republic of Iran was in a state of insurrection. Major disturbances have been reported in more than 100 towns and cities across Iran, from Ardabil in the north, on the Caspian Sea, to Bandar Abbas in the south, on the Persian Gulf.

Officially, at least 12 people have been killed and 1,000 demonstrators have been arrested, but its impossible to know how deeply the uprising has taken hold. A regime-ordered internet shutdown has cut digital communications across Iran by roughly 95 per cent, according to the global internet monitoring agency Netblocks.

But Iranians with access to satellite communication have managed to transmit images and videos to human rights activists in the Iranian diaspora, and the crisis is clearly far deeper than the government is letting on. Across the country, government offices, police stations and a major oil depot have been burned down. Independent reports indicate a death toll of at least 36 people. Government officials say more than 100 banks have been set ablaze, including the Central Bank of Iran in Tehran, the capital.

Sparked by a surprise announcement on Friday that the government was imposing drastic hikes in fuel prices, the focus of the protests quickly turned to demands for the overthrow of the Islamic regime itself. Shouting death to the dictator, hundreds of thousands of protesters have been streaming through the streets of Tehran and Mashad, Tabriz and Shiraz. Billboards and posters of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have been put to the torch.

Im getting first-hand information from people in the streets in different cities. Theyre mostly young people, and theyre crying, but theyre full of hope. People are very angry, the prominent womens rights activist Masih Alinejad told me on Sunday. These people have nothing to lose. Theyre fearless now. It is the government that is full of fear.

READ MORE:As protests deepen in Iraq, Canada is caught in the middle

A high-profile Iranian journalist, Alinejad was forced into exile 10 years ago. Alinejads My Stealthy Freedoms campaign against Irans compulsory hijab law, launched in 2014, has grown into a major protest movement. Begun as a Facebook page that invited Iranian women to post pictures and videos of themselves with their heads uncovered, the movement continues to grow, even though Tehrans Revolutionary Court ruled in August that women who send Alinejad their pictures and videos face prison terms of up to 10 years.

Alinejad said that while it is impossible to predict what will become of the current uprising, the spontaneous eruption that began last Friday is more radical than the protest movements that preceded it.

The 2017-18 revolt that began in Mashad was slow to take off, and centred on reformist demands. The failed Green Movement of 2009 erupted when a dubious presidential vote resulted in the election of the now-sidelined Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. This time its different, because of how rapidly the protests spread across the country, Alinejad said, and because its not just about corruption and the cost of living, like the protests of two years ago.

Although the gas price hikes triggered the protests that began last Friday, the popular demands explicitly call for regime change. Unlike 2009, the current protests are leaderless and organic, and thus more difficult to decapitate. People are angrier and getting angry faster. The regime is already using live bullets, firing into crowds.

This is the first time the government is afraid of the people right away. They shut down the internet right away. Straight away the government is full of fear. A leaderless movement is more dangerous. If the movement had a leader, they would go and arrest them. Now everyone is a leader.

The current protests are more like the events that ousted the western-backed Shah Reza Pahlavi and brought the Khomeinists to power in 1979, Alinejad said.

Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli is warning that security forces will act to restore calm if the protests continue, but whatever happens in the short term, the regimes prospects are dim.The International Monetary Fund reckons inflation could hit 40 per cent this coming year, and the newly re-imposed U.S. sanctions are beginning to bite. The Iranian economy shrank by nearly four per cent last year, and the IMF is forecasting a further contraction of six per cent over the next few months.

In the meantime, the Iranian people are being held hostage by the regime. Hostage-taking is in the Iranian governments DNA, Alinejad said, noting that the Khomeinist theocracy began with a hostage-takingthe capture of 52 American diplomats and citizens in November, 1979. They were held captive until January, 1981. The regime persists in jailing Iranian dual citizens and holding them to political ransom, Alinejad pointed out.

This is when the conversation turned personal.

On Sept. 23, Khameneis Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps showed up at the home of Alinejads brother, Ali. He was handcuffed blindfolded and taken away. Amnesty International calls Alis arrest a despicable and cowardly attempt to silence Alinejad and bring to an end her campaign against the compulsory hijab. Ali remains in Evin Prison.

This is another hostage-taking, Alinejad said. They want to keep me silent. They want to shut down the movement I am leading. They want me to feel guilty about my brother being in prison, and its not easy to deal with this feeling. When I am sitting down to dinner with my family, I have this feeling like someone is squeezing in my heart.

This is how the government is mentally torturing me. They want me to suffer every minute of my life. And this is the mentality of the government. So I have two options. To feel guilty and stay silent, or fight back against this oppressive regime. To fight back is the choice I have made. They havent broken me. They want me to stop spreading the message of Iran. They cannot stop me from giving a voice to voiceless people.

Read the original here:
The uprising in Iran: These people have nothing to lose. Theyre fearless now. - Maclean's