h/t caww
Posted on 12/30/2017 8:00:57 AM PST by kanawa
The US has warned Iran to respect people's right to protest, as rare anti-government rallies, which began over the high cost of living, grip cities in the Islamic Republic.
About 300 people protested in Kermanshah, a city in western Iran, on Friday, according to the semi-state news agency Fars. Police there used water cannon and tear gas to disperse demonstrators.
Protests also broke out in the capital, Tehran, according to social media.
Protests reported in Tehran, Kermanshah and Mashhad US President Donald Trump took to Twitter late on Friday, writing: "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!" His tweet seemed to be an almost word-for-word copy of an earlier post by White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, who also warned: "The world is watching."
The US Department of State described the rallies as peaceful.
"Iran's leaders have turned a wealthy country with a rich history and culture into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed, and chaos," it said in a statement. "As President Trump has said, the longest-suffering victims of Iran's leaders are Iran's own people.
"The United States strongly condemns the arrest of peaceful protesters. We urge all nations to publicly support the Iranian people and their demands for basic rights and an end to corruption."
(Excerpt) Read more at aljazeera.com ...
The mass hangings to come should calm things.
PRICE PROTESTS TURN POLITICAL IN IRAN AS RALLIES SPREAD (The Jerusalem Post) Dec.30
IRAN COUNTERS PROTESTS WITH PRO-GOVERNMENT RALLIES (The Jerusalem Post) Dec.30
IRAN CLERIC URGES TOUGH RESPONSE AFTER PRICE PROTESTS TURN POLITICAL (The Jerusalem Post) Dec.29
https://twitter.com/BabakTaghvaee/status/947161934624849920/video/1
“People of #Malayer tear down billboard carrying image of dictator Ali #Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Islamic regime during protest against corrupted Shia clercis and authorities of Islamic regime of Iran. #IranProtests”
The many minorities in Iran have long been touch points for neighboring Intelligence Services, and have neighbors have long cultivated groups and assets for leverage against the Iranian regime.
The Saudis have hooks into the Arab minority, the Kurds have militias in the NW mountains (PJAK), Iraq long harbored MEK, Iran took in a couple of million Afghans, and Israel and the CIA have hand their hands in for decades.
The economy and currency are in a tailspin, and the population does not want the mullahs in charge. Given a free vote, they would vote the mullahs out. Iran has the most pro-US public opinion in the Middle East, after Israel.
h/t caww
Thanks will pass it on
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