On June 20, Ahmad Khatami, a member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts and one of Tehran’s Friday prayer imams, shed light on the regime’s concerns over public protests and uprisings.
For nearly a decade, high-ranking officials, mainly the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, have attributed all the country’s crises and calamities to “sedition” and “sedition-makers.”
Not a day passes in Iran without authorities from different factions blaming and warning each other about the threats of their regime being overthrown. In this context, so-called authors, scholars, probes, and officials fill state-run media and TV networks with nonsense and baseless claims and narratives against the regime’s archenemy, the Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), to tarnish the opposition’s image and popularity among the country’s younger generation.
“The sedition of the seditionists should not be justified. The supreme leader of the Revolution insists that the sedition and seditionists should not be forgotten. Since 2009, he has used the term ‘sedition’ over 200 times,” said Khatami in an interview with Rasa news agency on June 21.
Of course, Khatami used the term “sedition” 12 times to prove that, in addition to Khamenei, the entire regime is concerned about upcoming protests. However, he bluntly acknowledged the primary purpose of popular revolts. “They had ominous targets; their main purpose was the elimination of the religious system,” he explained.
Therefore, Tehran’s temporary Friday prayer leader confirmed that the question is about “to be or not to be.” These remarks also reveal why regime officials consider each social issue from a security perspective and why authorities mercilessly deal with hundreds of poor and looted people who only pursue their delayed wages, pensions, and their plundered properties and assets.
Furthermore, this member of Khamenei’s inner cycle displayed why senior regime officials do not care about the obstacles faced by ordinary people, such as vast poverty, starvation, high prices, and unemployment of hundreds of thousands of workers within a few weeks.
According to the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ruhollah Khomeini, the authorities’ main duty is to remain in power and preserve the religious fascism. Meanwhile, Khamenei and his loyalists, such as the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and affiliated mullahs, spend all the country’s reserves and national resources to boost the regime’s oppressive power in order to confront domestic threats to the regime’s survival. In fact, freedom-loving people who struggle for freedom, equality, justice, and the rule of law are the main foe facing the mullahs’ regime.
In this respect, Khamenei welcomes any issue that diverts public opinion form calamities and crises created by the regime. Moreover, the regime’s oppressive, intelligence, and propaganda apparatuses tirelessly attempt to rein in the society’s anger. For instance, in the novel coronavirus case, despite health officials’ admissions over the actual scope of the virus, Khamenei and his president Hassan Rouhani repeatedly go the distance to portray a positive image of the country’s situation.
“In the coronavirus issue, the world witnessed the prudence of the Velayat-e Faqih [the supreme leader] system and the leadership of the supreme leader on the one hand, and the imprudence and weak management by the U.S. and Europe on the other hand,” Khatami said.
It is worth noting that the Iranian opposition PMOI/MEK has been providing reliable reports declaring the actual magnitude of the coronavirus crisis in Iran. “Over 60,000 people have died of the novel coronavirus in 334 cities checkered across all of Iran’s 31 provinces, according to reports tallied by the Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) as of Sunday afternoon local time, June 22,” PMOI/MEK’s official website reported on the same day.
In conclusion, Iranian officials any and all criticism of the regime’s inhuman policies and functions as a “seditionist.” In this regard, the mullahs lead a costly misinformation campaign to demonize their real opponents. Furthermore, officials are continuously threatening and warning citizens about harsh sentences awaiting protesters and freedom-loving individuals.
However, these desperate activities naturally display how the regime’s opposition, particularly the PMOI/MEK, is popular and admirable among Iran’s society. Notably, in a January 2010 Friday prayer session in Tehran, Ahmad Khatami frankly said, “The MEK was behind Iran’s uprising.”
Source » irannewsupdate