Washington, DC; March 1, 2017 – In recent days, the significant increase in the number of organized protests and demonstrations across Iran foretell of deteriorating domestic situation and reflects the Iranian people’s widespread rage against the ruling mullahs.
After days of demonstrations by thousands in the oil city of Ahwaz, thousands more teachers, nurses and other retirees have now organized a sit-in outside Iran’s Parliament. Similar protests are also taking place in the provinces of Alborz, Khozestan, Khorassan, Gilan, Mazandaran, and Isfahan.
The hallmark of these gatherings is not only the apparent expression of frustration at government sanctioned cronyism and corruption, but also a budding willingness to challenge it. Chanting, “worker, student and teacher – organize, organize,” the demonstrators appear to have in place a well-orchestrated plan and a similarly organized signage and logistical strategy.
These demonstrations also highlight the complexity with which Iranian people understand and express frustration over regime’s plundering of national wealth through its terrorist activities in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Outside Iran’s Parliament in Tehran yesterday, for example, these retired civil servants asked in unison: “when it is our turn, the treasury is empty?”
Organization of Iranian American Communities and its members in 40 U.S. states, express solidarity with the activists in Iran and again call on the United States to engage the Iranian people and their organized resistance. We also call on the administration to blacklist the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which has kept Iranian theocracy afloat through oppression, terrorism, and a nuclear weapons’ quest in the past 38 years.
