Protester shot dead in Iran ahead of US sanctions

Protester shot dead in Iran ahead of US sanctions
MENA
2 min read
The New Arab & agencies
05 August, 2018
There have been several demonstrations in Iranian cities in recent days over economic conditions and public buildings have been damaged.
[Getty]

Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency has said a man taking part in a protest in the northern province of Alborz was fatally shot.

The Saturday report says a protest was taking place a day earlier in Karaj, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Tehran, when someone fired from a car. There were no additional details.

Fars reported authorities arrested 20 protesters and many of the protest leaders were women.

There have been several demonstrations in Iranian cities in recent days over economic conditions and public buildings have been damaged.

The Iranian rial has dropped to a record low amid growing concerns about renewed US sanctions, which kick in on Monday.

Also on Friday, about 500 protesters attacked a seminary in Karaj and broke windows with stones and bricks.

With tensions high ahead of the return of US sanctions, the government of President Hassan Rouhani also faces opposition from conservatives and religious leaders, who have long disliked his outreach to the West and accuse him of governing only for the rich.

The conservative Qom News published a video of a protest in the holy city of Mashhad after Friday prayers, in which a cleric tells the crowd: "Most of your representatives don't care about people's problems.

"Most have two passports and their families are abroad. The judiciary should find these people and arrest them," the cleric says, to chants of "Allahu akbar" ("God is greater") from the crowd.

Former hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has fallen out with the conservative establishment since leaving office in 2013, has tried to ride this wave of anger.

In a Wednesday Twitter post, he called on US President Donald Trump to release a list of "relatives of Iranian government officials that have green cards and bank accounts in the United States", if such a record exists.

So far, social media reports suggest the current protests are far from the scale of the unrest seen in December and January, when at least 25 people were killed in demonstrations that spread to dozens of towns and cities.

There were allegations at the time that they had been sparked by conservative opponents of Rouhani in Mashhad before quickly spiralling out of hand.

But all Iranians are concerned about the struggling economy, especially since the United States walked out of the nuclear deal in May and announced it would reimpose full sanctions in two stages.