By Mehran Shamsuddin
TEHRAN – The recent wave of unrest that has rocked Iran has come several times closer to fully subsiding. But propaganda produced by Western media continued to fan the flames of riots and clashes, a move that is seen by some in Tehran as a way to push Iranian authorities into making poor decisions.
Mainstream Western news organizations are busy inciting unrest in Iran these days. CNN has alleged that it has evidence that Nika Shakarami, a young Iranian girl who died simultaneously with the unrest, was involved in the protests, something that goes against the account provided by Iran that she committed suicide.
Fox News, another America news channel, went so far as to say that Iranian officials are now escaping the country, a claimed that was laughed off by Nour News, a website linked to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
“Publish the names of officials who are fleeing Iran!” Nour News defiantly said on Friday, adding that the reports of officials leaving Iran are aimed at creating polarization in society and undermining the national morale.
Pundits believe that the reasons why Western media keeps exaggerating the situation in Iran is that they want to keep unrest alive. Ove the last few weeks, Iranian authorities have undertaken many measures to calm the situation and address the demands of the protesters. But every time the unrest come closer to an end, the Westerners inflame it with unfounded claims and allegations. This explains why Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian accused the West Friday of creating insecurity in Iran.
“We enjoy democracy in the Islamic Republic of Iran and respect for human dignity is one of the important principles of the Islamic Republic. But unfortunately, some Western countries seek to create unrest and insecurity in Iran, and in this regard, two days ago we witnessed a terrorist act in a holy religious place,” Amir Abdollahian said in a phone conversation with his Sri Lankan counterpart on Friday.
Mehdi Mohammadi, an advisor to Iran’s Parliament Speaker on Strategic Affairs, offered some details on how and why the West and Israel are trying to prolong unrest in Iran. In a post on his Telegram channel, Mohammadi said they used up every asset they built over time in several Iranian institutions to achieve the goal of keeping the streets active.
“For the plotter, the only way to materialize this goal is to get the [political] system involved in an ‘escalating cycle of violence’. The Islamic Republic discovered this game right from the start. So far, the Islamic Republic has resisted the heaviest of pressures to take a tougher line,” he said.
He noted that from a strategic point of view, the system intentionally refused to resort to suppression. Mohammadi said the plotter failed to induce a revolution but is trying to move toward more violence.
“They still hope the system lose control and get emotional at some point. But this will not happen,” he asserted.
According to Mohammadi, only over the last two days, seven security and military forces have been martyred.
Iranian media reported that on Thursday night two Basij members were assassinated in Amol in Mazandaran province. Several IRGC officers have been targeted by rioters in some cities, which shows the escalating cycle of violence against security officers. Iranian media is now replete with reports of security forces getting gunned down by rioters.
In the meantime, the authorities have tried to address the possible shortcomings. On Thursday, the Security Council of Sistan and Baluchistan announced the dismissal of Zahedan police chief and the head of a police station in front of which several people were killed nearly a month ago. The council said it accepted that some mistakes might have been made by security forces in dealing with the unrest.
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