Dhe Tehran regime is tightening its course significantly in the eighth week of the now abating protests in the country. The police have increased their arrests. According to Tehran, many people, especially young people, are not only being taken out of their homes and arrested, but also at their workplaces. On Tuesday, the spokesman for the Iranian judiciary, Masoud Setayeschi, announced that 1,024 people had been reported in the Iranian capital alone. He labeled the protesters “criminals and scoundrels” and announced the verdicts would “teach a lesson and be a deterrent”. The number of demonstrators arrested is estimated at 15,000 nationwide. Already on Sunday, the members of parliament had unanimously demanded in a statement that “the divine punishment against the rebellious elements be carried out immediately and all executed”.
After short trials, the revolutionary courts have announced their first verdicts. The 26th Chamber of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, for example, has sentenced the young demonstrator Mahan Sadri to death. The presiding judge, Iman Afschari, convicted him of armed rebellion against the Islamic Republic. The convict is accused of setting fire to a motorcycle and injuring a person with a knife. The defendant defended himself in vain. The executions have not yet affected the demonstrators. However, five Baluchis from eastern Iran have been executed in recent days, three for drug trafficking and two for collaborating with the militant group Jaish al-Adl.
It is now also known that the police have asked other armed units for help in putting down the protests in recent weeks. For weeks, it was mainly the normal police who were tasked with fighting the demonstrators. It is considered the weakest part of the security apparatus, since the esprit de corps, which requires unconditional loyalty to the Islamic Republic, is less pronounced than, for example, with the Revolutionary Guards and their volunteer militia Bassidsch.
A facsimile of a letter from the Arak province police to the Revolutionary Guards dated October 24 asking for help has been circulating on social media. Specifically, the police asked for the Bassij and units of the Fatemiyun Brigade to be deployed. The Fatemiyun Brigade was then deployed in Arak as well. It was founded in 2014 to defend Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria and has recruited among Shia Afghan refugees.
On the other hand, the regime has repeatedly circulated photos of killed demonstrators, claiming that they were Basiji who were killed by demonstrators and were therefore “martyrs”. The regime puts the number of its security forces killed during the protests at 38. In addition, in the past few days, Voice of America has broadcast footage of three Iraqi buses entering the Islamic Republic via the Iranian border town of Mehran. The passengers, dressed in khaki uniforms, were members of the pro-Iranian al-Hashd al-Shaabi. It was founded in 2014 with massive Iranian help to fight the “Islamic State” in Iraq.
Boycott of goods instead of demonstrations
The Kurdish city of Marivan is an example of how serious unrest continues to break out in isolated cases. The occasion was the death of the philosophy student Nasrin Ghaderi. She was taken to a hospital in Tehran on November 4 with severe head injuries, from which she succumbed the following day. Authorities said the cause of death was “poisoning” and wanted to bury her at night in camera, sparking riots in the city of 100,000.
However, many demonstrators are moving their protest away from the streets. Calls are circulating to boycott products from companies owned or collaborating with the Revolutionary Guards. Meanwhile, the Iranian economy continues to plummet. In the province of Qom, the governor confirmed mass layoffs in manufacturing and service companies. The reason he gave was a lack of raw materials and preliminary products as well as rising production costs. He did not name any dates. The layoffs contain social explosives, because many workers are employed on short-term contracts and are not socially cushioned by unemployment insurance.
In parliament, the President of the Planning and Budget Authority put the expected budget deficit for the current financial year, which ends on March 20, at 34 percent. In addition, according to the Association of Pharmacists, medicines such as antibiotics, medicines for respiratory diseases and infusion solutions are becoming scarce. The association criticized the fact that no strategic reserves of drugs had been created. To make matters worse, according to the Tehran City Council, the water supplies for the residents of the capital would only last for 100 days if there was no rainfall in that time.
