Protests that shook Iran were not just aimed at the economy, President Hassan Rouhani said on Monday, remarks suggesting the real targets were powerful conservatives opposed to his plans to expand individual freedoms at home and promote detente abroad.
The pragmatic cleric, who defeated anti-Western hardliners to win re-election last year, also called for the lifting of curbs on social media used by anti-government protesters in the most sustained challenge to hardline authorities since 2009.
“It would be a misrepresentation (of events) and also an insult to Iranian people to say they only had economic demands,” Rouhani was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency.
“People had economic, political and social demands.”
Iran’s influential Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday the security forces had put an end to a week of unrest fomented by what it called foreign enemies.
The protests, which began over economic hardships suffered by the young and working class, spread to more than 80 cities and towns and has resulted in 22 deaths and more than 1,000 arrests, according to Iranian officials.
Hamid Shahriari, the deputy head of the Judiciary said that all ringleaders of the protests had been identified and arrested, and they would be firmly punished and might face capital punishment.
An Iranian lawmaker confirmed on Monday the death of one detainee in prison.
“This 22 year old young man was arrested by the police. I was informed that he has committed suicide in jail,” Tayebeh Siavashi was quoted as saying by ILNA news agency.
Many of the protesters questioned Iran’s foreign policy in the Middle East, where it has intervened in Syria and Iraq in a battle for influence with rival Saudi Arabia.
Iran FM warns neighbours, says they seeking unrest in Iran
Iran’s foreign minister on Monday warned neighbouring countries over fomenting insecurity in Iran in a reference to anti-government protests that have roiled the country over the past two weeks.
The remarks by Mohammad Javad Zarif at a security conference in Tehran echoed the Iranian authorities’ stance, which alleges that foreign powers including regional rival Saudi Arabia stirred up unrest linked to the protests.
“Some countries tried to misuse the recent incidents,” Zarif said without blaming any specific country, and added that “no country can create a secure environment for itself at the expense of creating insecurity among its neighbours.”
“Such efforts” will only backfire, the official IRNA news agency quoted Zarif as saying.
The anti-government demonstrations first broke out in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city, on Dec 28 and later spread to several other cities and towns.
The protests were the largest seen in Iran since the disputed 2009 presidential election. T
hey were sparked by a hike in food prices amid soaring unemployment but some demonstrators later called for the government’s overthrow and chanted against the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Zarif on Monday depicted the session as a fiasco and evidence that the Trump administration is “isolated at the international level.”
The world “witnessed that (all other) members of the UN Security Council spoke about preventing the meddling in Iran’s internal affairs,” he said.
Zarif also warned that the Islamic State group is still active and a threat in the region and beyond, despite the destruction of its self-proclaimed “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq and called for a “complete crush” of the militant group.