Whether or not the protests in Iran are “dwindling,” as the regime insists and some foreign journalists reported, the uprising certainly has not been extinguished yet.
U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley declared at an emergency meeting of the Security Council on Friday that the world will be watching Iran as demonstrations against both the secular government and Islamic theocracy continue.
Radio Free Europe obtained amateur video that purported to show sizable protests continuing in several Iranian cities, contrary to the government’s claims that the uprising is effectively over. The authenticity of the video clips could not be independently determined.
Arab News posted video of a sympathy protest held outside the prime minister’s residence by Iranian opposition groups in London. The demonstrators asked the United Kingdom to follow the lead of the United States and speak out on behalf of the Iranian people.
Nobel Peace Prize-winning Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi said on Thursday that “people are still in the streets,” and even if they all went home, “their anger would remain, and the protests would resurface months or years later.”
“People should stop paying electricity, water, and gas bills. They should not pay their tax. They should withdraw their money from banks,” Ebadi advised.
She also called upon Iranian police and the theocracy’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to “put down their guns and do not kill their own brothers and sisters.”
Human rights groups and the U.S. State Department said on Thursday that over a thousand people have now been arrested during the regime’s crackdown on the protest movement. Hundreds of them have reportedly been stuffed into the infamous Evin prison, far exceeding the facility’s ability to process new inmates.
At least 14 students were arrested on Friday after publishing an open letter demanding the release of dozens of other students imprisoned during the protests, based on “unfounded and imaginary accusations.”