Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi yesterday appealed for national unity and tried to allay anger against the nation’s rulers, even as the anti-government protests that have engulfed the country for weeks continued to spread to universities and high schools.
Raisi acknowledged that the Islamic republic had “weaknesses and shortcomings,” but repeated the official line that the unrest sparked last month by the death of a 22-year-old woman in the custody of the morality police was nothing short of a plot by Iran’s enemies.
Amini, 22, was pronounced dead on Sept. 16, days after the morality police detained the Kurdish Iranian for allegedly breaching rules requiring women to wear hijab headscarves and modest clothes.
Photo: AFP
“Today the country’s determination is aimed at cooperation to reduce people’s problems,” Raisi told a parliament session. “Unity and national integrity are necessities that render our enemy hopeless.”
His claims echoed those of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who on Monday blamed the US and Israel nited States and Israel for inciting the unrest in his first remarks on the nationwide protests.
The riots “were engineered by America and the occupying, false Zionist regime, as well as their paid agents, with the help of some traitorous Iranians abroad,” Khameni said.
Iranian police must “stand up to criminals,” he said.
“Some people, without proof or an investigation, have made the streets dangerous, burned the Koran, removed hijabs from veiled women and set fire to mosques and cars,” he said, adding that “this is not about hijab in Iran,” and that “many Iranian women who don’t observe the hijab perfectly are among the steadfast supporters of the Islamic republic.”
A series of mounting crises have festered and helped fuel public rage, including the country’s political repression, ailing economy and global isolation.
Iran’s security forces have sought to disperse demonstrations with tear gas, metal pellets and in some cases live fire, rights groups say.
State TV reports that violent confrontations between protesters and the police have killed at least 41 people, but human rights groups say the number is much higher.
As the new academic year officially began this week, the demonstrations spread quickly to university campuses, long considered sanctuaries in times of turmoil.
Videos on social media showed students expressing solidarity with peers who had been arrested and calling for the end of the Islamic republic. Roiled by the unrest, many universities moved classes online this week.
US President Joe Biden on Monday announced that Washington would impose “further costs” on Iran for its lethal crackdown on protests, drawing accusations of “hypocrisy” from Iran yesterday.
“This week, the United States will be imposing further costs on perpetrators of violence against peaceful protesters,” Biden said in a statement. “We will continue holding Iranian officials accountable and supporting the rights of Iranians to protest freely.”
Biden said he was “gravely concerned” about reports of the intensifying repression of protesters and said Washington stood with “all the citizens of Iran who are inspiring the world with their bravery.”
The US president gave no indication of what measures he was considering against Iran, which is already under crippling US economic sanctions largely related to its controversial nuclear programme.
Iran accused the US leader of “hypocrisy” in invoking human rights to impose fresh punitive measures.
“It would have been better for Mr Joe Biden to think a little about the human rights record of his own country before making humanitarian gestures, although hypocrisy does not need to be thought through,” Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Nasser Kanani said in an Instagram post, reported by Iranian media.
“The US president should be concerned about the numerous sanctions ... against the Iranian nation, the sanctions whose imposition against any nation is a clear example of a crime against humanity,” he added.
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