Iran International
A gathering to mourn victims who died in the collapse of a new building in Abadan, south-western Iran, turned into anti-government protests Wednesday evening.
Disruption of the Internet in Abadan Wednesday night, to prevent uploading images of protests to social media, has continued but several videos have found their way to social media. The videos show hundreds of residents who had gathered to mourn the victims of the collapse a part of the ten-story Metropol twin towers Monday chanting against officials and clerical rule.
Locals held traditional mourning rites on the streets as the incident is seen by the public to be the result of powerful insiders not abiding by laws and regulation, violating building codes.
Protesters chanted some of the slogans popular at other anti-government protests including “Clerics Must Get Lost”, “Our enemy Is Here, It’s a Lie To Say It’s America”, “Neither Gaza, Nor Lebanon, I’ll Sacrifice My Life To Iran” as well as “Rise the People of Abadan, Your Brothers Were Killed” and “Shame on Our Shameless Authorities”.
Another slogan heard at the protest was “God Bless Your Soul Reza Shah”, a slogan often chanted at anti-government protests by those who venerate the 20th century founder of the deposed Pahlavi Dynasty as Iran’s savior and modernizer.
Iran witnessed days of protests in May when the government raised food prices, with the overall political situation remaining tense.
Abadan protesters also demanded the resignation of local government officials who they hold responsible for the tragedy, mismanagement of the situation after the building’s collapse, and alleged cover ups.
Protesters are angry about the mismanagement of the country and deep corruption which allowed the owner of the building to evade building safety regulations through his alleged close relations with powerful officials. They also accuse the authorities of mismanaging rescue operations and allegedly helping the owner, Hossein Abdolbaghi, to escape.
Many are also angry that in his meeting with lawmakers Wednesday, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei did not condole the families of the victims or mention the tragedy.
The second tower of the building may also collapse any minute as rescue operations continue. The governor of Abadan, Ehsan Abbaspour, said Thursday that more bodies have been pulled from the rubble, raising the death toll to 19. So far, he said, 37 have been rescued from the ruins of the building.
Abbaspour said the number of people trapped under the ruins is still not known and removal of the rubble and rescue operations are still underway.
Unofficial sources say as many as fifty may still be under the building debris. Head of Iran’s Red Crescent, which is carrying out the rescue operations, Pir-Hossein Koulivand, said Thursday that there is no way to confirm or refute such claims.
Construction in the building was not complete but the commercial units on the building’s lower floors, including a café run by a young couple, had already opened their businesses. The young couple were pulled out dead from their café by rescue workers.
The governor of Khuzestan Province, Sadegh Khalilian, has said that the owner only had permission for building six stories but later it was agreed to add five more.
Many locals refuse to leave the area and insist on helping with the rescue operations. Some, media and social media users say, the locals have been actively helping to remove the debris with bare hands or rudimentary tools.A local young man and his friends have dug a tunnel seven meters deep in one-day to find possible survivors under the rubble, Shahrvand Online reported Thursday.
An IRGC official in Khuzestan, Colonel Mohammadreza Leilizadeh, said Thursday evening that 65 battalions of male and 28 battalions of female members of the Basij will be participating in the exercises.
A large gathering was also held at the Imam Khomeini tomb complex in Tehran by the IRGC's Sarallah force in Tehran, which is tasked to deal with protests and defend centers of government power in the capital.
Basij is one of the IRGC’s five forces, which partly consists of volunteers who receive military training under IRGC command. Armed Basij militia are often deployed to suppress protesters and have been accused of brutalizing protesters. In the past two weeks protesters have attacked at least two Basij headquarters in three small towns -- Hafshajan, Jouneghan, and Baba Heydar – in in Chahar Mahal and Bakhtiari Province.
The militia’s urban exercises come amid a tense security atmosphere and massive internet disruptions in most cities and towns of the oil-rich province where protesters took to the streets two weeks ago over the announcement of a massive hike in food prices. In the past two weeks at least two more protesters have been killed in Khuzestan.
Security forces usually respond to protests with tear gas and excessive force, including lethal force, and arrest protesters even when they are demonstrating peacefully. Social media reports indicate that at least five protesters have been shot dead by security forces in western provinces since May 6.
Leilizadeh said the aim of the exercises is to improve the preparedness of the militia “to carry out real operations in social arenas throughout the region” and “psychological operations commensurate to the current circumstances” as well as “practicing individual combat technics.”
Protests in Khuzestan over water shortage last July lasted for several weeks and spread to other provinces. More than a dozen protesters were shot dead by security forces in these protests.
The recent protests in Khuzestan have also spread to mainly provinces, including Chahar Mahal and Bakhtiari where so far three protesters have been shot dead by security forces. The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), an independent human rights monitoring agency, reported on May 15 that protests had taken place in at least 19 cities and towns since May 6.
Leilizadeh also pointed out that similar exercises are being held throughout the country.
On Thursday the official news agency (IRNA) reported the commencement of similar exercises in the northwestern Ardabil province. The capital of the province, the city of Ardabil, was also the scene of anti-government protests last week.
Basij militia also held exercises in Golpayegan in the central Esfahan Province where people have also taken to the streets in the past few days to protest.
Security forces have arrested tens of political, civil, and labor activists in the past two weeks including some members of teachers’ unions on alleged charges of having “ties with terrorist groups’ and foreign spies.
“The arrests of prominent members of civil society in Iran on baseless accusations of malicious foreign interference is another desperate attempt to silence support for growing popular social movements in the country,” said Tara Sepehri Far, senior Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of looking to civil society for help in understanding and responding to social problems, Iran’s government treats them as an inherent threat.”