Iran Uprising At A Glance: Day 198 – OpEd

Iran’s nationwide uprising entered its 198th day as people in different parts of Tehran, the capital of Iran, and other cities continued their nightly protests the mullahs’ regime, expressing their hatred and opposition to the ruling dictatorship in its entirety and the oppressive security forces. 

Last night until the early hours of April 1, locals in various districts of Tehran, including Shahrak-e Bagheri, along with other cities, including Karaj, Qom and Kazerun, chanted anti-regime slogans, including:

“Down with the dictator!”

“Down with Khamenei, the murderer!”

In the city of Zahedan, the provincial capital of Sistan and Baluchistan, people continued to protest, and regime authorities deliberately disrupted Internet connections to prevent news reports and footage from being posted online.

In reports from the major port city of Chabahar in Sistan & Baluchestan Province in southeastern Iran, locals set fire to tires and blocked a major road for hours on Saturday to protest the killing of a gas station attendant by members of the regime’s repressive state police.

For many of the impoverished people of Sistan & Baluchestan, transporting small amounts of fuel across the border and selling it to customers has become the only way to earn a living and feed their families. The reason they live this way is more than four decades of regime corruption and discrimination against the Baluch minority. The regime’s security forces regularly attack and kill them under the pretext of fighting smuggling. Meanwhile, the regime’s own security forces control a vast fuel smuggling network that dwarfs the activities of the fuel porters of Sistan & Baluchestan Province.

Iran’s economy is in deep water, and more and more people are not only living paycheck to paycheck but finding it extremely difficult to make ends meet and put food on the table for their families.

On Wednesday, the 29th In many cities of Iran, teachers gathered in front of their local education departments to protest poor economic conditions, low salaries, and inadequate working conditions. Proteters teachers also demanded the release of their unjustly imprisoned colleagues. These rallies were held in the cities of Tabriz, Ardabil, Kermanshah, Baneh, Malayer, Hamadan, Zanjan, Bojnurd, Urmia and others.

In another development, according to the main Iranian opposition, MEK, 3,626 supporters of this organization have been arrested or disappeared from the beginning of the uprising on September 16, 2022, until March 20, 2023, and there is no information about their conditions and/or whereabouts. This is in addition to the thousands of people arrested in various cities, towns and villages across the country who were released before being identified or were able to flee.

Iran’s nationwide uprising entered its 197th day as resistance units affiliated with the MEK launched a new wave of anti-regime actions in numerous cities across the country.

Defiant youth attacked a building in Mashhad used by the mullahs’ regime to promote its ideology of hatred, misogyny and fundamentalism. They also attacked the representative office of the regime’s Foreign Ministry in the city of Kermanshah in western Iran. They also attacked and set fire to the so-called “Khomeini Relief Center” in the city of Kish in southern Iran. In another attack, they threw Molotov cocktails at IRGC paramilitary Basij sites in the cities of Mashhad, Hamadan, Bushehr, and Mahabad, setting them on fire.

They also torched large effigies of regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the cities of Yazd, Babol, and Qeshm, and a large effigy of deposed IRGC Quds Force chief Qassem Soleimani in Tehran.

In another development, on Thursday, Iran’s opposition leader Maryam Rajavi met and discussed with Mr. Liam Fox and Mr. Franz Joseph Jung, the former defense ministers of Britain and Germany. during their visit to Ashraf-3. The Rt. Hon. Fox underscored the need to blacklist IRGC as it would expedite the regime’s overthrow as was the case with other dictatorships. The Hon. Jung said some people say the IRGC & its mission must change. But we must say it must be blacklisted.

The Count:

• Days: 198    
• Protests: 282 cities
• Fatalities: 750+ estimated deaths, 675 identified by MEK
• Detentions: 30,000