Iran Uprising-November 2019-file photo

On November 16, 2019, widespread protests erupted all across Iranian cities because of oil prices hike. The protests which first started because of oil prices climb soon turned to become a widespread uprising targeting Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Hassan Rouhani, President of the regime, and demanding the overthrow of the regime.

From the first days of the protests, the Iranian regime shut down the internet to suppress the protesters with an iron fist and cold blood and keep the international community in dark.

Despite the brutal crackdowns, the protests have continued and still is ongoing. The reasons behind continuity of the protests are, the social-economic problems, which regime is incapable and unwilling to solve, and second reason is that this is an organized uprising and the resistance units of regime’s main opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI-MEK), are organizing and leading the uprising. The later can be seen in hundreds of remarks by the senior officials of the regime.

On November 17, 2019, the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei said “The counter-revolution and Iran’s enemies have always supported sabotage and breaches of security and continue to do so…If you note you will see that in the last two days and nights all the centers of sedition have become active…the criminal MEK is continuously calling for these actions and encouraging these actions in social media and other places.”

On November 17, 2019 Assadollah Abbasi, Spokesman of the Presidium of the Islamic Consultative Assembly commented on the remarks made by the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council in the closed session of the Assembly and said: Ali Shamkhani told the closed session of the Assembly that number of people who provoked people on the streets have been identified. It was determined that they were linked to the MEK Organization.

Alireza Adiani, representative of the supreme leader in the regime’s security forces by blaming the MEK for the protests in a speech on November 21 said: “The incidents in the last few days have been much more widespread, much more radical and much more violent than the previous seditions in previous years… in one day alone there were unrests in 165 cities in 25 provinces.”

Hossein Ashtari, Commander of the State Security Forces, said: “Our investigations indicate that instructions coming from counter-revolutionary and the MEK organization was the cause of these events. The country’s security and police institutions will identify these individuals, and God willing, they will be punished for their practices at the right time.”

The state-run news agency IRNA reported that: “Besides Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz, and Ahvaz, the city of Shiraz had the most extensive movement by hooligans and those linked to the MEK.”

Rasoul Falahati, Khamenei’s representative in the province of Gilan, described the protestors as “children of the executed MEK” and “children of the MEK in exile.”

Some of the regime’s authorities compared the situation to the eight-year war with Iraq. Mohammad Mehdi Hosseini Hamedani, the Friday prayer leader of Karaj, compared Khamenei’s acceptance of the increase of gasoline prices to the acceptance of a ceasefire with Iraq in 1988 by Ruhollah Khomeini, the regime’s founder. “The latest sedition was like the chalice of poison that the leader of the Revolution accepted at that time. This is how the security of the country was preserved and the collapse of the government and parliament was prevented.” In 1988, Khomeini, who had vowed to fight against Iraq to the last brick in Tehran, had described the ceasefire as a “chalice of poison.”

The ongoing uprising, once again displayed that the desire of Iranian people is the overthrow of the regime as its entirety, and they don’t recognize any faction of the regime as “reformers” or “hardliners”.  The uprising has targeted both the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the so-called “reformist” President of the regime, Hassan Rouhani. Simultaneously the so-called “reformists” similar to Supreme Leader are calling the protesters “thugs” and “hooligans” and called for the execution of the protesters.

Many senior security officials of the regime have acknowledged that the youth are following the path of MEK’s resistance units. These units have been torching the symbols of the regime for the past two years, and now the youth all across Iran are torching the regime’s institution.

“These people were connected to foreign governments and the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK)… I believe 34 MEK members have been arrested so far. A vast network of individuals, operating not under the MEK’s name, but pursuing their line and modus operandi were also identified.” Ali Shamkhani, the regime’s Secretary for Supreme National Security Council said in a conference call on November 24.

This uprising will continue to the end and it will overthrow the mullahs. This is the message of MEK’s resistance units as one of their banner which was posted in major cities in Iran reads:  “Be certain our people will succeed,” and “Sheikh has no choice but to suppress, but, he is digging his own grave.”