Iranian Officials React To Deadly Incident Triggering New Protests

Despite the government disrupting Internet connectivity, social media users have posted several videos showing a very large crowd in Abadan chanting slogans against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei such as “Death to Khamenei”, “Shame on You Khamenei, Leave the Country Alone”, and “Khamenei Is a Murderer, His Rule Is Illegitimate”.

Protesters also chanted against the Revolutionary Guard’s Basij militia telling them to “get lost’ and the state run broadcaster which is accused of biased reporting and censorship of the news related to the collapse of the building.

There are also videos on social media showing protests and mourning rallies in Khorramshahr, a major port city very close to Abadan, Behbahan which is also in Khuzestan Province, Bandar Abbas in Hormozgan Province, and Shahin Shahr in the central Esfahan Province, where many Khuzestani refugees of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) still live.

But Khuzestan is the heart of Iran's oil industry and further unrest could have economic consequences for the government.

Many are angry that in his meeting with lawmakers Wednesday, Khamenei did not express condolences to the families of the victims or mention the tragedy that had happened two days earlier.

In a message Thursday which was read in a meeting chaired by President Ebrahim Raeisi, he called the incident “sorrowful” and called for the rescue operation to be accelerated and the casualty toll minimized, thanked government officials, and extended his condolences to the bereaved families.

“The unfortunate incident in Abadan, in addition to the need for expediting action and the use of all capacities to reduce casualties, which is now of paramount importance, lays the responsibility with all of us — the officials of the country — to pursue the culprits of the incident and to give exemplary punishment to them with the cooperation of the judiciary, as well as to make a concerted effort to prevent its recurrence in all parts of the country,” he said in his message.

But this for many is too little and too late, as they increasingly see the government to be incabable and the ruling elite self-centered.

Videos on social media also show angry protesters on Thursday evening torching the shop of the father of the owner of the building, Hossein Abdolbaghi. Locals are highly skeptical of authorities' claim that Abdolbaghi died in the collapse and accuse them of a cover up. There is also a video showing protesters trying to break the gate of Abadan’s municipality while chanting slogans against Khamenei.

Vice President Mohammad Mokhber and Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi visited the site Friday morning. The governor of Abadan, Ehsan Abbaspour, told reporters that the death toll has now reached 24. He also warned about the collapse of the rest of the building and urged locals who have refused to leave the site to return to their homes.

Residents fear that authorities may end the rescue operations and say the strong odor rising from the rubble means more bodies are trapped and need to be pulled out.

The global Internet freedom watchdog NetBlocks on Friday confirmed a disruption across Iran with high impact to fixed-line services and said backbone gateway provider Telecommunications Infrastructures Company (TIC) has reported overnight maintenance work in progress at its central datacenters.

Many social media users, however, are suspicious of the timing of the maintenance work and say the disruption was a preventative measure against protesters communicating and spreading the message of protests to the rest of the country.

Residents of Khorramshahr and Behbahan, two other cities in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, took to the streets Thursday night, chanting slogans against the Islamic Republic.

The people of Shahinshahr in the central Esfahan province and Bandar Abbas in the southern province of Hormozgan also held protest rallies to show their solidarity with the people of Abadan, whose mourning ceremonies for the victims of the collapsed ten-story Metropol twin towers have turned into anti-government protests since Wednesday.

During the Thursday night protests in Abadan, people chanted slogans against the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei himself, saying “Khamenei is a murderer; his rule is illegitimate” despite the deployment of anti-riot police.

Iranians see the Metropol incident, with 24 people dead so far, the result of powerful insiders not abiding by laws and regulation and violating building codes, and accuse the authorities of letting Metropol owner flee Iran.

The government says the owner died in the collapse, but protesters say authorities are lying and the well-connected man has fled.

People in Khuzestan, Esfahan and Tehran are reporting serious disruption in their access to the internet amid ongoing protests to prevent uploading images of protests to social media.

Iran witnessed days of protests in May when the government raised food prices, with the overall political situation remaining tense.

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.

According to the documents sent to Iran International by Edalat-e Ali (Ali's Justice), signed by deputy prosecutor Mohammad Nasiripur on May 10, the judiciary urged the IRGC to prepare a comprehensive plan to nip the expected protest in the bud as the government was to announce new prices for food and other goods in the wake of the elimination food import subsidies.

The seven-page document – in 12 paragraphs – considered the protests a result of incitement by "internal traitors, dissidents and foreign media" and urged the security apparatus to target “key elements” and "behind-the-scenes leaders" as well as "field agents, organizers, and people participating in the rallies" to prevent the “riots.”

Nasiripur also urged the security forces to boost their control of transportation routes to Tehran, including roads, railways and airlines, to stop weapons and ammunition from entering the city. He also called for the transfer of those arrested to Tehran’s Evin prison within less than 24 hours.

Earlier in the month, the government stopped a key import subsidy, effectively raising bread and other food prices and triggering protests in numerous small towns and cities across the country. But the unrest quickly turned into anti-Islamic Republic protests with people chanting slogans against top government leaders.

Expressing support for the popular protests in the country on Friday, Mohammadi said that the international community should condemn the “killing of people on the streets” similar to the way they put pressure on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

In a message from prison obtained by Radio Farda, she described the Islamic Republic’s "violent" and "repressive" actions as worse than the "aggressor" governments such as Russia.

The activist also called on the people not to abandon the families of those killed and detained by continuing their protest rallies and “mass civil disobedience”, adding that protests are the legal right of the Iranian people.

The main cause of poverty and high prices in Iran is the "widespread systematic looting and corruption" by officials, she claimed, noting that the current miserable situation in the country is the outcome of an "authoritarian government".

Mohammadi was arrested last November, and she was sentenced to eight years in jail and 70 lashes, for trumped-up political charges in a five-minute trial in late January.

Protests began in Iran on May 6 as the government drastically raised food prices, leaving tens of millions of Iranians in danger of facing hunger as inflation surpassing 40 percent has depleted their means to buy basic food.

Several members of the US Congress as well as the State Department have voiced support for protesters, calling on the Biden administration for a more active response to the crackdown on the protests.