By: Alexxa Rojas
Protests erupted all across Iran in current days after an abrupt government decision to boost petrol charges in an effort to fill the crippling budget deficit stemming from the effects of US sanctions on the country’s economic system. The protests commenced within the night of November 15 and within hours circulated to 21 cities as videos of the protest started to spread online. The movement motivated demonstrations in towns and cities throughout Iran, with drivers abandoning vehicles on highways and protesters blocking roads and dozens of banks and stores being set afire and damaged With at least 180 people killed, and possibly hundreds more, Iran is experiencing its deadliest political unrest since its revolution 40 years ago. Although the protests started as peaceful gatherings, they soon turned into violent riots and rebellion towards the Iranian authorities. The Iranian government utilized several techniques to shut down the protests including a nationwide internet shutdown and, consistent with Amnesty international, capturing protesters lifeless from rooftops, helicopters, and gunfire. According to witness accounts and videos, security forces opened unprecedented fire on unarmed protestors, largely unemployed or low-income young men between 19-26, according to witness accounts and videos. This unjustified violence created the fuel for the rising anger of protestors throughout Iran.
While protestors are primarily driven by petrol prices, the price increase was nearly the tipping point of a growing economic crisis. Job opportunities have diminished greatly and the ability to stay afloat has become nearly impossible amid extremely high inflation rates, which sent 1.6 million Iranians into poverty in just one year. The protesting is so much more than a hike in oil prices, but rather an uproar towards the government corruption and theft of the Iranian government. Reza Khaasteh, reporter and editor for an Iranian page news site based in Tehran says in his interview with Vox Newsletter, “Frustration is very widespread now. The government needs to do much more to regain the trust [of the people]. But it’d be very, very difficult. … The decisions made by the government were wrong moves in the wrong time, as the people were already struggling under the US sanctions, and could not stand any more economic pressure.”
Agreed by the Supreme Council of Economic Coordination, the body decided that vehicles for private use would be restricted to 60 litres of fuel monthly, while the price of petrol would jump 50 percent to 15,000 Iranian rials per litre. Any fuel purchases in excess of allotted rations will be imposed on an additional charge of 30,000 rials per litre. Despite the fact that petrol remains cheaper in Iran than a large majority of other places around the world, average incomes are too low to adapt to the price increase. The enormous economic and social instability Iran faces as a nation is not a finished story yet. Protests and violence continue with the death toll constantly increasing each day, it is clear that protesting will continue until the regime shatters.
Iranian protesters strike at the heart of the regime’s revolutionary legitimacy
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/iran-protests-600-words-191118060831036.html
https://www.vox.com/world/2019/11/25/20980775/iran-protests-gas-prices
The Academy Journal for Global Affairs 