Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, has accused Israel and the United States of attempting to halt Iran’s “development” and is to responsible for the demonstrations that have engulfed the nation for more than two weeks.
The largest anti-government demonstrations the nation has witnessed in years were dubbed “riots” by Khamenei on Monday.
The 83-year-old leader had said nothing about the demonstrations that broke out when Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, passed away last month while being held by Iran’s morality police.
Khamenei told graduating cadets at a police university in Tehran, “I declare openly that these riots and this insecurity were a plot by the US and the occupying, phoney Zionist state [Israel] and those who are paid by them, and some disloyal Iranians overseas assisted them.”
“Reactions to her death before investigations [take place]… hurt us, but the accident that transpired resulted in the loss of a young woman,” Khamenei made the statement while being flanked by the heads of the police, army, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “When some come to make the streets unsafe, burn Qurans, rip hijabs off veiled women, and burn mosques and people’s automobiles – they’re not a normal, natural reaction,” he said (IRGC).
By claiming that another “excuse” for the disturbance would have been discovered if not for Amini’s passing, Khamenei attempted to further paint the uprising as a component of a foreign campaign to destabilise Iran.
Iran’s supreme leader claimed that the disturbance was an attempt to halt the country from making progress despite severe US sanctions put in place since Washington unilaterally pulled out of Iran’s 2015 nuclear agreement with global powers in 2018.
According to Khamenei, “they believe that the nation is moving into full-scale power and they can’t allow this.”
According to reports, the US is mulling more penalties against Iran in light of the demonstrations, which have claimed the lives of several people. In an effort to assist Iranians in getting through official internet restrictions put in place since the demonstrations started, certain internet sanctions against Iran have been relaxed.
