A former Iranian official said that Iranians would revolt against the regime in the near future as Iran’s currency hit a new low against the dollar today. Mostafa Tajzadeh, a former minister of interior and culture during the government of Khatami in the late 90s, warned the regime that “a new phenomenon of rebellious citizens who have become disillusioned with the ballot box and reforms” has appeared in Iran and that “they may take to the streets at any moment.”
“As was witnessed during the January 2018 and November 2019 protests, this social and political rebellion will not only target the President but will target the whole system and will lead to a crisis in the whole political system,” he told Hamdeli state-run daily today.
“The popular protests in 2018 and 2019 sounded serious alarm bells for the state to the extent that if the system does not think about a solution to resolve problems, in the near future, God forbid they will face very serious problems,” Mostafa Tajzadeh said.
“I hope this does not happen,” the so-called “reformist” politician added.
He once again stressed that the nationwide protests in Iran were against the regime in its entirety and not against a certain government.
Iran’s currency hit another record low today aggravating the country’s already crumbling economy. According to Bonbast, the dollar is now equal to 19,840 tomans.
A state-run website wrote that the toman at 20,000 to the dollar was “more dangerous than the coronavirus”.
Asre-Iran website said that the new low would lead to higher prices for Iranian consumers and the closure of factories.
In the summer of 2018, bazaar merchants in Tehran went on strike and protested after the dollar hiked against Iran’s currency. At that time, the toman was trading at 9,000 to the dollar. The protesters’ economic demands quickly turned political with demonstrators chanting “death to dictator”, “death to Khamenei”, “death to Rouhani” and “our enemy is right here, they lie when they say it’s the US”.
During the January 2018 nationwide protests which spread to almost all of Iran’s cities, demonstrators also chanted against the regime’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.
But the most rebellious of these protests was in November 2019 when the regime tripled the price of gasoline. The protests spread to 160 cities as protesters torched banks, gas stations, police stations, governor’s offices, police kiosks, security force cars, and motorcycles, bases belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and its paramilitary branch the Bassij, IRGC owned chain stores, seminaries, offices of the heads of Friday prayers, ATM’s, and charity boxes belonging to Khamenei’s bonyads lining Iran’s streets.
The regime responded by fatally shooting at least 1,500 men, women, and children in the span of only a few days amid an internet blackout.
After the brutal suppression, a commander of the Basij paramilitary forces said that the regime had been near collapse during the five intense days of clashes between protesters and the regime.
“I have seen miracles in seditions and the (1979) revolution but this sedition was something else,” Brigadier General Salar Abnoush said calling the protests “a full-fledged world war”.
In another event, On July 9, 2020, Iran’s Minister of Health Saeed Namaki told an emergency meeting of the Coronavirus Headquarters in Tehran that Iranians would “revolt” against the regime due to poverty.
“In the duality of livelihood and health, the Minister of Health, who is only supposed to pay attention to health, had to pay more attention to livelihood conditions,” Saied Namaki said yesterday.
He blamed the country’s problems on sanctions adding that they had no way of supporting the people during the COVID-19 epidemic that is killing at least 200 Iranians every day.
Namaki warned Iranian officials that if they did not think about solving the country’s economic crisis, Iranians would revolt against the regime.
“The security reports are also sent to me. The fact that the people will turn to rebellion due to poverty is very serious,” he said.
“The President should be thinking about livelihood conditions. The government… security and military forces must think about livelihood conditions and preventing rebellions,” Namaki added.
Therefore, Many politicians and regime officials have warned that when new protests erupt again across Iran, they will be more violent than before.
Shahrokh Tavakoli, educated in the US, currently residing in Europe, Director of @IranNW, providing news and analysis from inside Iran & political activist.
Twitter: @tavakoli_sh
Email: shahrokh.tavakoli@gmail.com
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