Iranian cities hit by anti-government protests
Anti-government demonstrations that began in Iran on Thursday have now spread to several major cities. Large numbers reportedly turned out in Rasht, in the north, and Kermanshah, in the west, with smaller protests in Isfahan, Hamadan and elsewhere. The protests began against rising prices but have spiralled into a general outcry against clerical rule and government policies.
A small number of people have been arrested in Tehran, the capital. They were among a group of 50 people who gathered in a city square, Tehran's deputy governor-general for security affairs told the Iranian Labour News Agency.
The US State Department condemned the arrests and urged "all nations to publicly support the Iranian people and their demands for basic rights and an end to corruption".
Also at Bloomberg and Reuters.
Update: Street protests hit Iran for third straight day as pro-government rallies held
Iran Confronts 3rd Day of Protests, With Calls for Khamenei to Quit
Update 2: Iran blocks Instagram, Telegram apps as government protesters will 'pay the price' for unrest (archive)
CEO says Iran blocking (Telegram) messaging app after issuing warning to protesters
Iran protests: 'Iron fist' threatened if unrest continues
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Sunday December 31 2017, @03:21PM (9 children)
These protests have been consistently aimed not at the elected portions of the government (President Hassan Rouhani and the legislature) but at the theocrats (Ayatollah Khameini and the like). And the elected portions of the Iranian government have been pretty reasonable ever since Rouhani took over, working out deals with John Kerry, helping Iraq fight off ISIS, and by all appearances focused on improving the economy.
If the protesters and President Rouhani can convince the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to stop taking orders from Khameini, Khameini and his council will be forced out of power. But unlike many of the Arab Spring revolts, there's already a democratic institution ready to take over should he be removed. And the young people of Iran especially, who weren't around in 1979, seem like they'd be all for it.
A democratic Iran could actually be a pretty good ally of the US in the region. Certainly a better partner than the Saudis ever have been.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @03:47PM (1 child)
These protests are over food price inflation and seem organised as they sprung up in multiple cities simultaneously. As you know, the clerics are massively opposed to Rouhani's reforms but it seems unlikely liberal, anti-theocratic actors are behind these latest protests.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday December 31 2017, @04:56PM
Food price inflation = people are starving. Which means that if you have to choose between someone in an ivory tower who thinks nothing is wrong, and a guy who says "You all elected me to help reform this country, and I have a plan to make sure you can eat", guess which one you go with?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Troll) by jmorris on Sunday December 31 2017, @05:29PM (1 child)
Wow, people always going on about Russian shills and here we have an Iranian spokesman.
Rouhani is good cop to Khameini's bad cop, nothing more. If he weren't he wouldn't have been permitted to run. Remember, you need the clerics' approval to appear on the ballot in Iran.
As for "working with Kerry" that was pretty fucking easy since both were on the same side trying to make Iran a regional power and fuck the US and its allies. Hard to turn down a plane illegally[1] loaded with untraceable currency to help them fund their terror^Wcommunity organizing. Remember, Iran funds most of the more organized terror in the region other than ISIS/AQ which were US[2] creations that went out of control. Why wouldn't they be helping Iraq fight ISIS? ISIS opposes their own attempt to seize Iraq (with the quiet support of Obama) and overthrow their puppet dictator in Syria. Duh. And they can bloviate about trying to improve the economy but until they stop trying to become a nuke power and get to reenter the rest of the world it probably ain't happening. And people there are smart enough to figure that out.
The people of Iran tried once to rid themselves of their insane clerics but apparently knew so little about the outside world that they were unaware we had a Muslim Pro Iran POTUS. He of course took the side of the Mad Mullahs and the attempt failed badly. Hopefully Trump can quietly lend a hand. But no nation building, no American troops with big targets on their backs. If we want to unwind Obama's "mistakes" we must defeat either Mad Mullahs or "Lil Rocket Man" so we should not let an opportunity pass.
[1] Yes illegal, nobody even contests the fact U.S. law clearly forbid what Obama did. Stuffing the plane with Euros instead of FRNs doesn't really relieve him of the obligations to obey the law. On the few occasions when His sycophants in the legacy media are pressed on the subject they simply admit it and then blow squid ink and change the subject. It is ok, because He is sorta a god and all that.
[2] We admit creating to the precursor of AQ way back when Reagan was helping them drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. A lot of Saudi money also went to them more recently... but we aren't supposed to notice that. And we really aren't supposed to notice Trump not having it, laying the law down in the very House of Saud and the mass arrests a few months later. Nope, nothing to see here, move along. And anyone with two functioning brain cells has long since figured out we were arming ISIS out of the ruins of Libya, resulting in a fiasco right before the 2012 election that had to be sorta covered up at all cost. More damning, less than a year after the not so secret Muslim / Communist was out of the White House the "Eternal Caliphate" was a smoking ruin.
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @09:12PM
Says the russian shill. Can you make a New Year's resolution for a 1 year vow of silence? Think of it as charity for everyone else on earth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @10:33PM
ha! [wikipedia.org]
And the USians have the audacity to make noises about other countries 'interfering' in their elections..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by shortscreen on Sunday December 31 2017, @11:21PM (3 children)
No, a democratic Iran can't be an ally, because they might not vote to sell themselves out to "US interests."
The State Department cheering for protests just means that they are probably funded by US cash and that the US has their own handpicked puppet leaders ready to take over if any change in governance does come about. (See also: "Yats is the guy")
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday January 01 2018, @12:30PM
> The State Department
Yes sadly it seems another of those destabilization moves. They spoke TOO SOON.
I mean, if it were a grassroots protest, the State Department would not support it unless they knew who is behind it, and what they want to achieve. It takes a bit of digging for that. So, at best, it's some political action by well known opposition masked as street protest.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @11:20PM (1 child)
Do you mean like when they overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran and installed the Shah?
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday January 02 2018, @09:31AM
Yes. But with cell phones.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Geezer on Sunday December 31 2017, @04:06PM (18 children)
Revolutionary Guard.
If the RG feels threatened or is ordered to do so, these demonstrations will be crushed with a ruthlessness not seen since Mao's Great Leap Forward.
Also, any reference to "Arab Spring" is mortally insulting to Persians.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday December 31 2017, @04:14PM (11 children)
Not really. It's been applied to countries that are neither Arab nor Persian.
http://en.thegreatmiddleeast.com/2017/04/putin-fears-an-arab-spring-in-russia/ [thegreatmiddleeast.com]
https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/online-articles/arab-spring-coming-china-missing-piece-puzzle [columbia.edu]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Geezer on Sunday December 31 2017, @04:28PM (10 children)
And that makes it less inappropriate...how?
Persians have always held Arabs in a sort of benign contempt, like uncivilized barbarians.
(Score: 2, Troll) by takyon on Sunday December 31 2017, @04:32PM (9 children)
The Chinese have held the whole world in a sort of benign contempt, like uncivilized barbarians.
The Persians can complain about what they want to call it after they finish overthrowing their government. Until then, they're just losers.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday December 31 2017, @04:58PM (8 children)
Conveniently, the Americans have held the whole world in a sort of benign contempt, like uncivilized barbarians.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @05:15PM (5 children)
Also, uncivilized barbarians have held Americans in a sort of benign contempt, like uncivilized barbarians.
What have we learned here?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @06:13PM
To be fair, Americans do plenty to deserve their benign contempt. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @10:24PM (3 children)
Evidently, not syntax!
Meaning, "held in contempt, as uncivilized barbarians are wont to do"? Or "held in contempt because they regarded them as uncivilized barbarians."?
You said:
Are you saying that even uncivilized barbarians regard Americans as uncivilized barbarians, and thus hold them in contempt? Certainly explains Trump! Make America Barbaric Again! #MABA!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @12:53AM (2 children)
Evidently you're a twat!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @01:09AM (1 child)
That's "Mongol" to you, you stupid Mongoloid!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @12:25PM
Given that barbarian means "who speaks in a funny, uncivilized way" that is, doesn't speak Latin, I guess we're all barbarians. We certainly behave as such.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @07:00PM (1 child)
Like a bunch of goddamn Mongols :)
The Mongols meanwhile have been mostly minding their own business stuck between Russia and China and slowly being corrupted to the capitalist ways, their former method of land (dis)ownership giving way to a more traditional form of land ownership, the kind that is a sickness and plague upon all living individuals.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday December 31 2017, @08:14PM
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/30/world/asia/kazakhstan-cowboys.html [nytimes.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Sunday December 31 2017, @05:27PM (1 child)
So what? That still leaves 40% of the Iranian population who aren't Persian, including a modest number of Arabs. And maybe they ought to get less sensitive about such things?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @10:11PM
The two largest ethnic minorities, Azeris and Kurds, most likely agree with the Persians.
Arabs are scum.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by crafoo on Sunday December 31 2017, @06:24PM (2 children)
Agree. Arabs are the toothless Kentucky hilljacks of the middle east.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @09:18PM (1 child)
You are showing off your ignorance. The entire middle east is considered "Arab".
Now if you have some trollish reply that you were setting up such as "well they're all toothless rednecks then!" then you're more of an idiot than people think. May you win that Darwin award you've been coveting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @10:27PM
By toothless redneck hilljanes! What is your point? (claiming someone is ignorant only based on your own ignorance will only embarrass yourself. But, too late.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @12:45AM
The Great Leap Forward was an industrial thing (making low-grade steel in backyards).
Perhaps you mean The Cultural Revolution where young punks were allowed to humiliate, beat, and even kill anyone who represented old values.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @04:57PM (10 children)
They can have their own country with laws, customs, whatever they need. Pick a country, fence or nuke out a border, move them ALL in and let them sort it out amongst themselves.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 31 2017, @08:17PM (8 children)
Throw the Jews in with 'em.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @09:26PM (7 children)
It is an interesting phenomenon with you libertards. You push the "free speech" envelope as heavily as possible in some attempt to assert your right to speak any kind of garbage you feel like. The very real blowback is that your methods create a false sense of urgency against such "hate speech" since it is not always obvious when someone is trolling and half the time the trolls are semi-serious.
Your ilk will create the political setting where the 1st amendment is altered and "thought crime" becomes a much more significant reality. I wouldn't mind so much if you were only shooting yourself in the foot, but your efforts will have a much wider impact upon innocent people.
People waste their time doing many relatively worthless things, you waste your time soft-pushing evil.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 31 2017, @10:27PM (1 child)
Are you implying that Muslims cannot get along with Jews and other sects of Muslims? Bigot! Racist!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @10:47PM
It gets worse: Iranians that protest against theocratic rule are Islamophobic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @10:28PM
Shut up, Donny! Remember that thing we talked about? You're doing it again.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Monday January 01 2018, @03:32AM (3 children)
Such would-be censors would be targeting more legitimate speech otherwise. It's better to have them fail against "hate speech" than succeed against mere disagreement speech. And we see, once again, libertarians blamed for the evil of others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @06:01PM (2 children)
Not blamed for the evil of others, blamed for their own stupidity which makes it easier for people to perpetrate evil.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 01 2018, @06:19PM (1 child)
I guess that's not quite as stupid an accusation, assuming it's true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @07:32PM
Oh it is very true. Just take a gander at jmorris spewing his tin foil half baked noodle sauce.
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Tuesday January 02 2018, @11:14PM
Who, the Republicans?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @05:45PM
Too bad Iran is next on the list of countries for regime change. PNAC was held back after it became clear Syria will remain free. Now they are moving forward on the list. North Korea is now basically sanctioned to the near maximum and they can expect to be murdered once more if they disarm themselves.
A murderous empire controlled by filthy jews has been on a campaign of conquest. It needs to be put out of its misery.
The protests in Iran are nothing but 'Murricans pumping money into the bad elements of society and organizing them in order to achieve their unholy demonic goals.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @08:40PM (4 children)
the state department of the usa complaining about corruption in iran has to be to 10 pot/kettle events of 2017.
they gonna put comedy central out of business.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by requerdanos on Sunday December 31 2017, @09:57PM (3 children)
Yeah, here's the thing. If Iran "condemned" the arrest of rioters in the US, and encouraged "all nations" to support "the American people and their demands for basic rights and an end to corruption" they would be denying the role of the current government in police work, and encouraging revolution (which is what it would take, post-patriot-act, to restore basic rights).
And that's exactly what the US is doing here. I am not fooled. Neither is the world, I hope.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Monday January 01 2018, @03:35AM (2 children)
Sounds like you would approve of that, right?
So the US is doing something you would otherwise approve of? Once again, imagined motive is more important than what actually is done.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday January 01 2018, @04:39AM (1 child)
Yeah, I guess except for the hypocritical overtones, they're doing something I would otherwise approve of.
Thanks for making me think.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 01 2018, @04:54AM
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Sunday December 31 2017, @11:29PM
God damn.