13-Year-Old Student Shot Dead in Khomeini Shahr

The Iranian newspaper, close to the government, has reported that so far 4 people have been killed in "Doroud" Lorestan, 2 in "Izeh" Khuzestan, 3 in "Touiserkan" Hamadan, 1 Basij member in "Kahrizsang" Najafabad, and 6 in "Qahderijan" in Isfahan province. "Some semi-official reports also indicate an increase in the number of casualties in Khomeini Shahr and Najafabad, which has not been officially confirmed." The newspaper quoted the Minister of Education mentioning the deaths of two students named Armin and Shayan, stating: "One of the students, 13-year-old Armin Sadeghi, was shot dead in Khomeini Shahr." The newspaper also reported that provincial officials announced the arrest of at least 450 people in Tehran, 100 in Arak, 138 in Mashhad, 150 in Hamadan, 20 in Karaj, 10 in Urmia, and several protesters in Qahderijan, but "according to scattered statements from governors and mayors, this is not the final number of those arrested." The government-aligned newspaper also reported that judicial, security, and law enforcement officials "harshly warned" the protesters, with Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, the Attorney General of the country, warning "those who create insecurity in society" and emphasizing that "the detainees are of two categories." He stated: "Some are those who were arrested on the scene and were not the main and influential factors in the riots and were deceived by some propaganda; if they have not committed a crime, they will be warned, and certainly, there will not be severe judicial action against them. However, the judicial and security apparatus will deal severely with those who commit crimes and cause destruction and harm to the people. The cases that are formed will go to court and will be dealt with according to legal regulations; however, the rioters and their behind-the-scenes elements should know that neither the judiciary nor the security nor the intelligence apparatus will relent in this matter." The newspaper "Javan," close to the Revolutionary Guards, in its editorial on Wednesday, has introduced the existence of "hatred" towards the Islamic Republic among the people as one of the main factors of the widespread protests in Iran, stating: "The threat to collective and individual interests can be a trigger for protesters to take to the streets everywhere in the world, but the subversive actions and slogans indicate the existence of 'hatred.'" Abdollah Ghanji, the editor-in-chief of Javan, emphasized that "this hatred can be seen as a product of accumulated 'feelings of humiliation,' 'feelings of discrimination,' and 'class distance' stemming from the inappropriate interactions of the ruling institutions in solving issues, the inappropriate behaviors of those who hold the banner of the revolution above their heads, and the 'perception-making' of the regime's opponents regarding the performance of the Islamic Republic for the youth." This newspaper close to the Revolutionary Guards emphasized that one of the most important lessons from these protests is "the concentration of various state apparatuses on diagnosing and examining the reasons for the production of this hatred." The editorial writer of Javan introduced the protests in the cities as different from "all the riots, protests, and disturbances after the revolution," stating: "The most important feature is that the reformists are not behind it, unlike in 1999 and 2009; the limited presence of the population in the riots, especially in Tehran, and its leaderless nature is noteworthy from this perspective. Although some of the detainees were members of Rouhani's campaign, the reformists are not behind them; however, since there is no clear boundary between the regime's opponents and some reformists, these dual elements act and have an intersubjective back and forth between the inside and outside of the regime." Other characteristics that the editorial of Javan mentioned for the protests in the cities include "lack of specific demands" and "the impact of mobile social networks," noting that "the start of the movement from the periphery to the center" is another characteristic of these protests, as "usually, social waves flow from the capital, but this time it started from the counties, especially small towns, which can be attributed to the local police's limitations in weak crisis management and the provocation due to political immaturity, but if we consider the fundamental cause to be livelihood and employment, its start from the counties seems more natural." This newspaper also wrote that "the reasons for the relative calm in Sunni-populated areas, large provinces like Fars, East Azerbaijan, and counties of Kerman, etc., can be analyzed," but "the main focus of the riots in Lorestan and Isfahan certainly has sociological, cultural, and ethnic reasons that need to be studied," as in Isfahan, "the cities of Khomeini Shahr, Najafabad, and Falavarjan are among the first cities in terms of the number of martyrs in the Sacred Defense and are also religiously prominent." The newspaper wrote: "The intensity of violence in the small city of Qahderijan, which was once an area of influence for 'Mahdi Hashemi,' the brother-in-law of Ayatollah Montazeri, especially the armed behaviors indicate a sense of revenge and hatred that cannot be ignored in the final analysis of their painful killings in the 1980s and before the revolution and the regime's decisive reaction to it in the 1980s." The newspaper "Khorasan" reported an increase in the number of casualties from the protests in the cities to 22, stating that in total, considering the casualties from the protests on Tuesday night, "the total number of fatalities from the recent unrest reached 21; also, Sajjad Shah Sanai, one of the Basij members in Najafabad, was shot dead by attackers." According to this newspaper, among the casualties of the protests, "two students" named "Armin and Shayan" are also present, which Mohammad Bat'haei, the Minister of Education, confirmed on his Twitter. The Khorasan newspaper pointed out that on Tuesday night in Tehran, "besides relatively calmer gatherings of a few dozen, nothing special happened," and "Mashhad was also calm," stating that in the cities of "Ilam, Tabriz, Hamadan, Karaj, Islam Abad, and Fooladshahr," the protesters, whom this newspaper referred to as "rioters," engaged in "graffiti, throwing grenades, attacking security forces, and subversive slogans." The newspaper "Ebtekar" reported, citing the political and security deputy of the Tehran governorate, that in the past three days, at least 450 protesters have been arrested in the capital. Ali Asghar Nasir Bakhsh stated: "In Tehran, about 200 people were arrested on Saturday, 150 on Sunday, and about 100 on Tuesday." Simultaneously, the newspaper "Arman" in its front page titled "Discordant Note of Rouhani's Resignation" reported that a publication named "Sadegh Newsletter" affiliated with Imam Sadiq University published a letter signed by those "demanding the resignation of the President and early elections." According to this newspaper, the letter emphasized the "failure to practically fulfill the promises and slogans of the President and the chaos prevailing over the government's planning approaches, evaluating him as incapable of solving the real problems of the people," and stated that the direction of the 97 budget bill would lead to "inflation and rising prices and consequently create civil disobedience and social unrest in the future." The Arman newspaper, however, noted the existence of two tendencies within "Imam Sadiq University," stating: "One side leans more towards the Stability Front, while the other believes it should align with the thoughts of Saeed Jalili. The differences between these two factions are not significant, and both are jointly aimed at weakening the government." The newspaper "Bahaar" in a note titled "Genealogy of the 96 Protests" wrote: "The audience of these protests is not only the government in the sense of the executive branch but rather the real audience is the government in a broader sense and the ruling system." This newspaper noted that in analyzing and controlling these unrests, it is important to remember that protesting against the chaotic social and economic situation of the country incurs a heavy cost, a significant part of which is borne by the lower classes of society, and in fact, they had no choice but to accept the risks of street protests, including the security label, the danger of arrest, and imprisonment." The Bahaar newspaper emphasized that "the reflection of the infographic of the share of budgetary institutions among public opinion was a spark in the dynamite store of astonishment that led to an explosion of questioning," writing: "It was predictable that this public questioning in the midst of economic recession and high unemployment rates, especially among the educated, would have an uncontrolled reflection in the form of protests and unrest," but that protest "was not taken seriously as a sign of the inefficacy of the political and economic structures of governmental, non-governmental, and quasi-governmental institutions." Salah al-Din Harsini, a professor of political science and international relations, wrote in a note in the Bahaar newspaper titled "Why Projection?" stating: "It is simplistic to consider the recent unrest and protests solely as a product of the plots and conspiracies of the enemies and sworn opponents of the regime and revolution and to view the protesters as the foot soldiers of the West, the exiled counter-revolutionaries, the agents of the imperialist system, and the mercenaries of Zionism."