MASS RALLIES IN IRAN IN SUPPORT OF GOVERNMENT
State TV aired footage on Saturday showing people in several cities
waving flags and carrying banners bearing the image of Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei.
The large demonstrations, which are held every year, were organised
weeks ago to mark the end of unrest following the country's 2009 election.
This year, however, they took on new significance, offering a show of
support for Iran's leadership after anti-government protests gripped a number
of cities.
Triggered by the high cost of living, protesters took to the streets to
denounce a surge in the prices of basic foods, the sluggish economy and
unemployment.
The protests first broke out on Thursday in Masshad, Iran's
second-largest city, before reportedly spreading to the capital, Tehran, and
other major cities on Friday. Dozens of arrests were also reported.
On Saturday, small crowds of protesters rallied for a third day in
Tehran, Shahr-e Khord and Kermanshah, according to photos and videos posted on
social media.
The rallies appeared to take place despite Interior Minister
Abdolrahman Rahmani Fazli calling on people earlier in the day not to
participate in what he called "illegal gatherings".
Semi-state news agency Fars reported confrontations between police and
protesters at the Tehran University.
🎥🔴تلاش عدهای فرصت طلب برای ایجاد اغتشاش مقابل دانشگاه #تهران و واکنش جالب مردم pic.twitter.com/ECtaWcZ68S— خبرگزاری فارس (@FarsNews_Agency) December 30, 2017
Also on Saturday, Iran hit back at the US after President Donald Trump
said Tehran "should respect its people's right to express
themselves".
"The world is watching!" Trump wrote in a Twitter post late
on Friday, while also accussing Iran's
government of corruption and funding "terrorism abroad".
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— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2017
In response, Bahram Qassemi, spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry,
called the US president's warnings "cheap, worthless and invalid",
according to the semi-state news agency Fars.
"Iranian people feel no value for the opportunistic claims of the
US officials and Mr. Trump, himself", Qassemi was quoted as saying.
'Iranians will reject US
statements'
Under Trump's administration, Washington and Tehran have grown further
apart, clashing on foreign policy issues such as the wars in Syria and Yemen
and over the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Some analysts rejected the US' comments as simply driven by politics.
Trita Parsi, founder and president of the Washington, DC-based National
Iranian American Council, said: "The fastest way to discredit these
legitimate grievances expressed by the Iranian people, is for Trump to throw
himself into the mix."
Amir Handjani, a New York-based fellow at the Atlantic Council
think-tank, said: "Anything the Trump administration says about Iran (even
if it may be remotely credible) will be rejected by the vast majority of
Iranians, given his position on a whole host of issues that touch on Iranian
prestige and national interests."
Iranian officials have long blamed US sanctions for the country's
sluggish economy. While many of these economic measures were lifted after the
2015 nuclear deal, some unilateral US sanctions remain.
Eshaq Jahangiri, first vice president of Iran, said that while some
protesters were rallying against high prices, others were set on derailing the
government.
"All economic indications in the country are good. Yes, there is
an increase in the prices of some products and the government is working on
fixing causes of high prices," he said.
"The people behind what is taking place think they will be able to
harm the government. But when social movements and protests start in the
street, those who have ignited them are not always able to control them."
Commenting on the anti-government rallies, Nader Hashemi, who heads
Middle East studies at the University of Denver, said Iranians were frustrated
about the lack of accountability from their leaders.
"It's really the linking of Iran's regional foreign policy - in
Syria in particular - with the economic grievances that many people are
feeling," he told Al Jazeera.
"Many Iranians ... do not understand why Iran has invested so
heavily in regional foreign policy adventurism to the detriment of Iran's own
internal economic problems."
A large section of society believes there is "no accountability
over where money is being spent", he said.
"The hardline elements of the regime are probably going to blame
protests on foreign conspiracies. The real question is what will the Iranian
government do and say in the coming days in response [to the protests]?"
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