Government Conference of '9 Dey' Held in Tehran and Several Cities in Iran

As reactions continue to recent protests in various cities across Iran, the government rally of '9 Dey' was held on Saturday at the Tehran Mosque and several other cities. Iranian state television aired footage on Saturday showing several thousand people gathered at the Tehran Mosque holding placards supporting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, with slogans such as 'Death to the seditionist' and 'You turned the JCPOA into a step/You made the nation miserable.' The Associated Press estimated the number of participants in the 9 Dey rally in Tehran to be 'about four thousand.' The Fars news agency described the attendees as 'various segments of the people and students.' Other state news agencies also reported similar gatherings in various cities across Iran. This rally was held to commemorate a day that, according to Islamic Republic officials, marked the end of months of protests and street clashes following the controversial presidential election of 2009, in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner. Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, the main speaker at the government event on 9 Dey in Tehran, emphasized that 'we have 1400 years of experience in resisting sedition' and stated that we must return to the conditions before the JCPOA. He added, 'The enemy intends to create sedition among the Iranian people once again and wants to impose a new sedition on the nation through cyberspace and economic issues, but our nation is the nation of 9 Dey.' On Thursday and Friday, protests were held in various cities in Iran, including Mashhad, Kermanshah, Isfahan, Shahrekord, Rasht, Sari, and Qom, where security forces attacked some protesters and detained several of them. Hessameddin Ashna, an advisor to the Iranian president, considered Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the 'behind-the-scenes supporters' of him to have a 'significant role' in recent events and wrote on Telegram, 'It can be said that the flames of Ahmadinejad's seditions will haunt the regime for a long time.' Ebrahim Raisi, the custodian of the Astan Quds Razavi, also tweeted after the Mashhad gathering that 'the people, especially the underprivileged, are under pressure economically.' Raisi, who went to Bushehr to attend the government ceremony of 9 Dey, also mentioned in remarks reported by Mehr news agency that 'the rightful demands of the people are being labeled as a new sedition by the enemies' and stated, 'The enemies want to hijack this rightful demand of the people for their own benefit by promoting anomalies.' Fereydoun Ahmadi, a member of parliament, told IRNA that 'these protest gatherings that have occurred in some cities are not a good thing and should not pour water into the enemy's mill.' Ahmad Khatami, a representative from Kerman in the Assembly of Experts, also reacted to the recent protests, stating that 'the world of imperialism should have taken a lesson from the epic of 9 Dey, but the events that occurred in the country in recent days showed that the counter-revolutionaries did not take that necessary lesson from this incident.' According to ISNA news agency, he added, 'I declare that the counter-revolutionaries involved in these incidents, especially those who shouted disruptive slogans next to the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad, deserve the harshest punishment.'