Iran Pours Troops Into Streets For Anniversary of Hijab Protests as Regime Soldiers Are Killed in Clash With Protestors

Islamic Republic enforcers are on high alert, fearing that Wednesday’s anniversary of the 2022 killing of a young woman, Mahsa Aminini, could reignite protests.The regime’s response to an uprising will be “far more decisive than all previous periods,” judiciary chief, Gholam-Hossein Mohsen Ejei, wrote on X. His threat indicated that if there are widespread protests an even more murderous spree is planned than the two-day January bloodbath that killed tens of thousands.“If they once again make the mistake of thinking they can create unrest and riots, they can be certain that they will face a very strong and firm response from the police, security, and intelligence forces, as well as the judiciary,” Mr. Ejei added. It has been four years since a nation-wide uprising over the death of 22-year-old Kurd, Amini, on September 16. Amini was arrested by the regime’s morality police for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly and died in police custody. Protests in Kurdish areas spread to the rest of the country, giving birth to the slogan “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi,” or “women, life, freedom.” Armed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Basij, and police units are now mobilizing across the country. Motorcycle-mounted enforcers are reportedly positioning themselves on roofs and streets, ready to suppress any sign of unrest. While would-be protesters in the big cities fear a return of the killing, far away protests are brewing. Three members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed during a sveven-hour clash with protesters at the southeastern city of Saravan, the regime-controlled Tasnim news agency reported earlier this week.Members of a Baloch minority group, the People’s Fighters Front, confronted regime enforcers who arrived at 5 am in large numbers to raid a local home. One Baloch fighter was killed in the firefight.Meanwhile, in major cities “There are massive IRGC trucks everywhere you go,” a reporter at the anti-regime channel Iran International, Negar Mojtahedi, tells The New York Sun. “They’re blocking roads. They’re everywhere in anticipation of more than just something, more than usual.”She is doubtful, though, that the Amini murder anniversary would get regime opponents to the streets. “People are finding other ways to protest, because they know they’ll get killed.”Rather than street protests, defiant videos fill social networks, targeting officials’ accusations that only traitors, trouble makers, criminals, or American and Israeli tools are unhappy with Iran’s unprecedented inflation and economic woes. “I bought six eggs and a can of tuna for 500,000 toman,” one man says while dancing in a viral video. “I’m not upset at all. I’m actually very happy. Because if I’m not happy they’ll call me a Mossad agent.” Inflation as high as 85 percent and acute shortages of gasoline are exacerbated by America’s blocking Iranian oil exports and cutting access to global financial institutions. Under American pressure, banks in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and other countries closed down regime accounts. “We are not managing the Iranian threat, we are ending it,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Congress Tuesday. Iranians have long given up on their corrupt and inept government’s ability to steer the economy. Even before the latest American reimposed “maximum pressure,” large swaths of the country — including the capital, Tehran — suffered from water shortages. Images of rusty trickles of water coming out of home taps are filling social media.“Iranians know there’s no way out of the mess that the regime created,” Ms. Mojtahedi says. “Eventually people are going to do something. It doesn’t mean it’s necessarily going to happen because of the Mahsa Amini anniversary. But at one point something’s got to give.”

Iran Pours Troops Into Streets For Anniversary of Hijab Protests as Regime Soldiers Are Killed in Clash With Protestors

Iran Pours Troops Into Streets For Anniversary of Hijab Protests as Regime Soldiers Are Killed in Clash With Protestors

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