TEHRAN (dpa-AFX) – Iran’s justice minister has placed all participants in the demonstrations under general suspicion since Thursday. “Anyone who was arrested during this period is definitely guilty because they were there,” Amin-Hussein Rahimi said on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting.
The current wave of protests was triggered by the severe economic crisis in Iran at the end of December, where initially mainly traders took to the streets in the capital Tehran. There were no arrests at this point, Rahimi claimed.
Last Thursday, the protests escalated after Reza Pahlavi, son of the Shah who was overthrown in 1979, called for mass demonstrations from his exile in the USA. “It was no longer a protest at all, but a full-scale internal war,” said Rahimi.
The minister announced tough legal action. “There is no leniency whatsoever for those who were involved in destruction and killings, i.e. terrorist actors,” said Rahimi. Even those who merely took part in the protests were guilty, he added. Participation alone is a criminal offense because it is based on an “illegal” call./arb/DP/jha