Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi issued a stern warning to anyone thinking about protesting the country’s theocratic regime on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the arrest of Mahsa Amini, whose death in police custody sparked demonstrations across Iran.
Raisi, a protégé of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, blamed the West for last fall’s uprising, which was sparked after Amini, an ambitious 22-year-old lawyer, was arrested on Sept. 13, 2022, and allegedly beaten to death three days later by Iran’s moral police for not wearing her hijab properly.
“[T]hosts who intend to abuse the name of Mahsa Amini, with this excuse to be agents of foreigners, to create this instability in the country, we know what will happen to them,” said Raisi, during an interview with “NBC Nightly News” host Lester Holt on Tuesday.
“And they know that jeopardizing the safety of people and the safety of society will have a huge cost.”
Raisi downplayed Amini’s death, calling it an “incident,” and denounced the protests for women’s freedom, which left nearly 500 protesters dead, as “a project against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Raisi accused the West of using Amini’s death to launch a “hybrid war” against the Iranian regime.AFP via Getty Images
“Similar incidents happen every day in the US and in European cities. The Islamic Republic of Iran responded quickly and followed up on the issue,” Raisi said.
“But I want to mention the fact that there are some countries, because some European countries and the US, are using this incident as a project against the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is a hybrid war and a cognitive war. It is a political war. It is an economic war, a media war, and a psychological war against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he added.
Tehran has prepared for possible protests by setting up emergency checkpoints, disrupting internet access and purging university professors who have supported the protesters, according to the Associated Press.
The somber anniversary of Amini’s arrest and death comes the same week the Biden administration announced it had frozen $6 billion in Iranian assets as part of a broader deal to secure the release of five American detainees.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who signed the sanctions waiver last week to pave the way for the deal, insisted the funds could only be used for humanitarian purposes.
“Humanity means whatever the Iranian people need, so this money will be budgeted for those needs and the Iranian people’s needs will be decided and determined by the Iranian government,” Raisi said, when asked by Holt how the unwanted money would be used.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
