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Iranian regime’s suppressive ploys to counter planned protests for Fire Festival
3/10/2010
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Terrified of the potential for protests by the Iranian people during the celebrations of Fire Festival (Mach 16), the clerical regime is trying in vain to prevent protests through intense suppressive measures. Some of these include:
• Setting up briefing sessions for members of the paramilitary Bassij Force in order to prepare them to prevent Fire Festival protests. These sessions are coordinated by Brigadier General Hamedani, Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the Greater Tehran, and Brig. Gen. Hossein Motlaq, Commander of the IRGC in the province of Tehran;
• Organizing intelligence teams by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and the Intelligence Organization of the IRGC and Bassij to identify activists in all communities and to arrest all “trouble makers” prior to the Fire Festival;
• Instilling an atmosphere of intimidation with the help of a psychological warfare through which the protestors are linked to “the enemy” and are given ultimatums;
• Issuing propaganda about the extensive presence of the regime’s agents everywhere prompting protestors to lose trust in everyone else as well as the courage to participate in protests;
• TV advertisements about the dangers of celebrating with fire (customary during the national Fire Festival in Iran); Broadcasting scenes of burnt victims, as well as the threats to their lives and property;
• Confiscating fire crackers and locking up shops that sell fireworks or store them;
• Urging people to spy on one another and to inform on those who intend to set up fireworks celebrations;
• Concentration of forces in 30 locations of Tehran, including Tehran Pars, Haft Hoz in Narmak, Telephone Khaneh in Narmak, Vali-e Asr, Vanak Square, Mirdamad, Sadeqieh, Nil Square, and other districts which have been the focus of previous protests; Protection of specific sites like buildings belonging to suppressive organs and police stations in these locations;
• Encouraging young males and females towards acts like dancing and holding parties despite being banned under the clerical rule;
• Setting up bonfires by regime agents in locations that are authorized by the State Security Forces (SSF) and inviting people to those sites;
• Prevention of bonfires even on a small scale by people themselves and attempts to put them out immediately. Previous years’ experience shows that youths would immediately expand even the smallest of bonfires and set the stage for anti-regime protests by citing fire celebrations. In addition to extensive firefighting facilities, IRGC agents on motorbikes will be equipped with fire extinguishing capsules and will be ready to prevent setting up of bonfires by people;
• Banning taking pictures and films from scenes of protest by people and curbing their use in the media against the regime;
• Establishing regulations on banning people traveling on motorbikes after 5 pm local time on Tuesday, March 16;
• Arresting protestors under the pretext of “safety” precautions and citing charges of “harming people’s lives.”
• Confronting any gatherings immediately after dark and arresting anyone who has joined others in one single location, even if numbering as low as 3 to 4 people.
Despite all these suppressive precautions, the courageous Iranian people and youths are still expected to stage protests with the chants of “death to Khamenei,” “down with the principle of velayat-e faqih (absolute clerical rule),” and other anti-regime slogans, while setting fire to the repulsive pictures of the regime’s founder, Khomeini, its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, as well as its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as a way to express their rage and anger towards the entire ruling system of religious fascism in Iran and to voice their just aspirations for the establishment of democracy and popular sovereignty in their homeland.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
March 8, 2010
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