Young Boy Shot Dead In Southeast Iran

Despite the heavy presence of security forces on the streets and violence against protesters, thousands held nighttime gatherings and chanted slogans against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Republic in the capital Tehran and many other cities, particularly in western provinces of Kordestan, East and West Azarbaijan, and Khuzestan.

Videos circulating on social media also show protests in Qazvin, Zanjan, Miandoab, Baneh, and Shahriyar.

According to Amnesty International, security forces killed eight protesters between Wednesday and Thursday night. Amnesty has called on the UN Human Rights Council to take decisive action and immediately convene a special session on Iran in order to prevent further loss of life in the country. “Failure to act decisively will only embolden the Iranian authorities to further crackdown against mourners and protesters,” an Amnesty statement said Thursday evening.

In Baqeri highway in eastern Tehran angry protesters set trash bins on fire and blocked streets.

Other videos show people protesting in Molavi neighborhood in the south of capital calling for the government’s downfall.

Videos posted on social media show a huge number of demonstrators gathered in Chitgar neighborhood in western Tehran chanting "This year is the year of blood, Seyed Ali [Khamenei] will be gone” and “We’re all Nika, we’re ready to fight" referring to 16-year-old Nika Shakarami who was commemorated by protesters in many cities on the 40th-day of her death.

Protesters also chanted “Women, Life, Liberty” in Ahvaz, capital of the oil-rich Khuzestan Province.

In Shoush in southern Khuzestan Province regime forces attacked people and fired tear gas to disperse chanting protesters.

Special forces fired tear gas at apartment windows in the same neighborhood (Chitgar) to silence people chanting from their windows.

Similar protests were also staged in Ekabatan in the west of the capital and Tehranpars in the east and several other districts of Tehran.

People in Punak neighborhood in western Tehran lit fires and formed human circles around it, chanting “Death to the child-killing government.”

Thursday evening's protest was the first-time large scale demonstrations in the northern city of Astara, Gilan Province.

In the northern city of Rasht, capital of Gilan Province people chanted slogans against clerics and clerical rule.

In the eastern religious city of Mashhad, home to an important Shiite shrine, antigovernment demonstrations were staged with people chanting “Freedom, Freedom, Freedom,” and “Death to the Dictator”.

People took to the streets in the Kurdish city of Bukan in West Azarbaijan chanting the same slogan.

In Shiraz where there had been fewer protests people called for support from their fellow citizens asking them to join the protests.

Videos posted on social media show unrest in Boroujerd in Lorestan province with police forces trying to crack down on angry dissenters.

Security forces also opened fire on protesters in the Caspian Sea port city of Anzali.

"A bombing in Mo'ali Abad Street in Shiraz was detected and foiled by the Revolutionary Guards intelligence," Sepah news said, without giving further details.

There is no possibility to verify IRGC's claim, as the ideological-military-business organization and also Iran's Intelligence Ministry in the past have made numerous similar claims without presenting any evidence. In most cases no public trial of suspects were held or even names released.

The IRGC-linked Fars News quoted “an informed security source in Shiraz” as saying that the remotely-controlled bomb was found and neutralized by security forces and intelligence ministry agents after the gun attack on Shahcheragh shrine.

Wednesday's shooting, which was claimed by the Islamic State (ISIS) group, killed 15 including children and injured dozens more at the Shahcheragh shrine. Officials said they had arrested a gunman who carried out the attack at the shrine. The attack took place amid widespread antigovernment protests across the country which began nearly two months ago following the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, on September 16.

The Iranian government has organized nationwide demonstrations against the shooting following Friday prayers. Funerals were also due to take place for the victims. Officials said they had arrested a gunman who carried out the attack at the shrine.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei vowed on Thursday to retaliate against those threatening the country's security without further elaboration as to whether this meant those responsible for the attack, protesters, or both.

"We will take revenge for the blood of the martyrs of Shiraz," said Tehran Friday prayer Imam Haj Ali Akbari about the attack on the shrine.

Many Iranians did not trust the authorities or believe that ISIS was responsible for the attack. They accuse the regime of being behind the attack or orchestrating it to blame protesters at home for causing unrest and insecurity and justify harsher crackdown against opponents.

Mohammad Esmail Kowsari, also a high ranking IRGC officer said that so far “Protesters were able to scare businesses” but government policy will change.

Many small businesses close their doors during street protests, mostly in solidarity with the anti-government demonstrations, but regime insiders such as Kowsari claim protesters threaten shops and other small businesses.

The IRGC officer also repeated typical accusations made by hardliners that the protests and an attack in Shiraz Wednesday that killed 15 people are organized and financed by “foreign countries”, without naming any country. But he threatened that Iran “should deal with these countries in a serious manner.”

ISIS has taken responsibility for the attack on Shahcheragh shrine in Shiraz but many Iranians are not convinced the regime had no part in it, saying it is a scenario for cracking down harder on protesters.

Authorities have been claiming that “separatists” and “instigators” are behind the efforts to overthrow the government and break Iran into areas controlled by ethnic groups, a claim routinely denied by Iranians on streets and social media.

Following Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s lead, Iranian officials have alleged that protests are instigated by foreign enemies while the unrest continues.

President Ebrahim Raisi on October 25 accused “enemies of the Islamic Republic” of fomenting the protests, echoing what Khamenei said a day earlier. Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf in turn vowed the parliament would take action to change the ways of the morality police in a bid to calm the protesters.

In a video message, he said Iranians have embarked on “another epic” on the 40th day of their “revolution,” referring to the nationwide rallies that were held to commemorate the 40th day since the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini that ignited the current wave of protests. “You, my compatriots, on the 40th day of your revolution have begun another epic.”

He also honored Cyrus the Great -- the founder of the first Persian empire, the Achaemenids – saying that “As an Iranian I am proud that our nation, at the direction of Cyrus the Great, became the first cradle of human rights in the world. Yet our nation’s current rulers have the greatest animosity for human rights and freedom.”

“Let us, by honoring Cyrus the Great, take an oath with our nation and its bright future that Iran will once again be an exporter of the principles of human rights and an example for all the world,” Pahlavi said.

Scheduled nationwide protests in Iran on the 40th day of Mahsa Amini’s death started before noon Wednesday, October 26, with a large gathering at her grave in her hometown of Saqqez and lasted well into the night in many cities across Iran. The 40th day of a loved one’s death has a special significance in Iran, and in case of an unjust killing, the occasion turns into public mourning and fuels angry protests.

Although following the 2021 presidential election only conservatives have remained on the political scene, still various groups among them are competing fiercely to win the lion’s share of power and financial resources.

The general belief was that the so called “revolutionaries” have the upper hand in Iran’s domestic politics after takeover of parliament and the presidency in 2020 and 2021. However, it appears that there are super ‘revolutionaries’ who want to grab the power from the clutches of those we knew so far as ‘revolutionaries.’

Several Iranian news outlets in recent days have quoted Gharn-e Now website as having reported that it was Majles Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf who first revealed that super-revolutionaries have been posing a challenge to other conservatives.

More recently, Mohammad Sadegh Tavangar a lawmaker close to Ghalibaf wrote in a commentary on the government-owned news agency ISNA’s website that hardliners such as Mohammad Sadegh Koushki and Amir Hossein SabetIi are the leading figures of this group that have been trying to undermine the authority of politicians in the conservative camp, particularly the so-called neo-cons led by Ghalibaf.

These individuals are linked to hardliner former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili. Ghalibaf recently lashed out at this group without naming Jalili and accused them of “opening their mouth and saying anything and doing anything without calculating the consequences of their behaviour.” He called these individuals super-revolutionaries borrowing a label Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei earlier put on pseudo-revolutionaries. Ghalibaf said, “They have never done any serious work, but they behave in a way as if all of us owe them something.” This looked like a characterisation of Jalili, a presidential candidate who was defeated by others at least twice. “If you never write something, no one knows how many mistakes you can have in a sentence,” said Ghalibaf.

The Majles Speaker has experienced competition from super-revolutionaries associated with the ultra-conservative Paydari party during the Majles elections of 2020 and the presidential election of 2017. He still remembers how they undermined his upper hand in 2017 and put forward Ebrahim Raisi as their candidate, who at the end of the day lost the election to moderate conservative Hassan Rouhani.

In recent months, inside the Iranian parliament, the so-called super-revolutionaries have attacked Ghalibaf several times, the last time by engineering revelations about his family’s controversial shopping trip to Turkey.

More recently, those close to Ghalibaf have accused the super-revolutionaries in and out of parliament of causing the ongoing unrest in Iran with their hardline positions and behaviour that have annoyed all walks of life, particularly women and the youths. The Ghalibaf camp’s attacks directly target individuals such as Saeed Jalili and those close to him. Tavangar in his commentary in ISNA, has finally named Amir Hossein Sabeti a showman on the state TV who has annoyed almost everyone both on TV and on social media, particularly Twitter. Koushki has done the same as a frequent contributor to those programs. Tavangar said that the duo had an active part in radicalizing Iran’s hardliners.

Sabeti’s tweet on October 26, in which he accused Iranian protesters of having the blood of the victims of the terrorist attack on a mosque in Shiraz on their hands, seriously annoyed and angered many Iranians.

Tavangar wrote, “They want to force more devolved individuals to leave the train of the Islamic revolution by levelling accusations against them, but we will not allow them to do so.”

Meanwhile Tavangar harshly criticised Jalili for keeping silent about the ongoing protests for longer than a month.”

Tavangar also criticised the ultra-Conservative party for radicalizing Iranian youths by furthering an initiative to ban social media and for not being accountable for its actions.

The infighting may also signal the neo-cons’ attempt to save their faction before the unrest brings down everyone currently in power in Iran.