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The Iranian government has shut down nearly all internet access across the country amid mounting protests that began over a 50 percent hike in fuel prices. There are pockets of access on the ground. However, in general the connection is blocked. Phone calls abroad still work.
Iranians entitled to protest, insecurity not tolerated: President Rouhani (source):
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani says his administration recognizes people’s right to hold protests against a recent government decision to ration gasoline, emphasizing, however, that nobody will be allowed to spread insecurity in the society.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Sunday, Rouhani referred to the recent protests in some Iranian cities against the government’s measure, which were at times marred with violence, saying holding protest rallies was a natural right of the people.
“After implementing this plan, we saw that some people took to the streets to protest. I believe that it is natural when the administration implements a plan and not everyone agrees to it. Some people may be opposed [to that plan] and they have the right to give voice to their opposition,” Iran’s president said.
“What the government has done was in accordance with the law…We act on the basis of the law and what we finalized was agreed upon by the heads of the three branches of the government,” he added.
On Friday, Iran began rationing gasoline and substantially increased the price of fuel, saying the revenue would be used to assist the needy.
The National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company (NIOPDC) said in a statement late Thursday that the price of a liter of regular gasoline had gone up to 15,000 rials (12.7 US cents) from 10,000 rials and the monthly ration for each private automobile was set at 60 liters per month. Additional purchases would cost 30,000 rials per liter.
The decision sparked rallies in a number of Iranian cities, some of which were marred by violence as opportunist elements tried to exploit the situation and ride the wave of peaceful protests against hiking fuel prices.
Consequently, the demonstrations turned violent in some cities, with reports of clashes between security forces and certain elements vandalizing public property.
This edition of #PressTVDebate discusses gasoline price hike in #Iran. https://t.co/zujJ1tTfTa
— Press TV (@PressTV) November 17, 2019
Rouhani further emphasized that protesting is different from rioting, saying, “I tell our dear people that protesting is different from rioting. Protest is a right for all the people and they can protest…but we must not allow insecurity in the society.”
It will be unacceptable to misuse the people’s right to protest and attack banks, police stations and the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting’s offices, he noted.
The Iranian chief executive added, “The government will not allow anyone at all to [create] chaos and insecurity, but all have the right to protest, speak and criticize.”
Rouhani thanked the Iranian people for the vigilance and refusal to join the small groups of rioters and plotters who vandalized public property.
He also hailed the great efforts made by the Intelligence Ministry, the police force, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Armed Forces of Iran to identify the main protagonists behind the acts of vandalism and arrest a number of them, saying that the rest of them would also be taken into custody and dealt with based on the law.
Outlining the reasons behind the government’s decision, Rouhani said that rationing gasoline and an increase in its prices would have no benefits for the government, but would rather serve the Iranian people’s interests.
The new measure, he added, would lead to a decrease in gasoline consumption and help the country maintain its self-sufficiency in producing gasoline.
On Sunday, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei backed the recent government decision to ration gasoline and increase its price.
Ayatollah Khamenei said while he is not an expert in the field, he still supports the decision which has been made by the three branches of power — namely, executive, legislative and judicial.
#IranProtests It is imperative for the world to support Iranian citizens trying to overthrow the hate regime that has abused them for the past 40 years.
Pfftt this has nothing to do with booting american arselickers out in ’79.
I pay 1.20$ per liter of gas, and even more for Diesel, if they think 0.25$/L is expensive.
Stop trying to change the story from what it really is to promote your stupid regime change agenda, they dont work, look at lybia and shut up.
Why don’t you go and live under this jihadist regime in Iran? Iranians protest against oppression from which they have been suffering for 40 years.
US changed “regime” in my country by coup, and from that moment I am under oppression from which I have been suffering for 20 years. At least, that Iranian government is their choice, their internal afair. The government in my country is the choice of the US and was put into power by brute force by the Americans.. Basically same oppression only, in my country is “good”, “democratic” oppression and in Iran t is “bad”, “autocratic” oppression, right?
Which country you live in?
It ain’t Israel where you are from, maybe you know fellow Tel-Aviv child smut peddler Jaboc Wohl. We will be seeing you around Tel-Aviv troll.
I agree that only Iranians should choose their government. The current regime is a jihadist dictatorship.
No,
Who elected the supreme leader 30 years ago?
Khanenei was elected by the institution thats would approximate the supreme court in the usa.
Only difference is the supreme court judges in iran are elected and on terms, unlike USA, where supreme court justices are appointed for life. Wich is more democratic?
Surprise surprise its muthatfuckin Iran.
So keep spitting your little venom kike vermin, I will laugh it off all day. YOU PEOPLE are a fucking joke!
“…I will laugh it off all day.” – Stupid people laugh at complex ideas they don’t understand.
Pick and choose your points dumbass, i was talking specifically about SUPREME COURT JUSTICES,wich is the foundation of democratic societies.
Your just a coward spinning a web of fucking lies, even when i am being very.specific, you brush it off, because im fucking correct and you are wrong.
The USA is a fascist plutocracy with a veneer of democracy on top. I mean fuck look at the DNC shennannigans leading up to the 2016 elections, thats not what a healthy democracy does.
Nor what your country shitsrael is doing is very democratic either, especially how non jews are treated is appalling.
Of course you will just blame iran as always because your an intellectual midget, all you do is read a fucking script, you bleat the same thing the media tells you to bleat.
Ill say and think what i want, and you can kiss.my ass if you dont like it, you and your little buddy will, along with benchpress ,forskin, solomon and douche national.
Don’t bother with Concrete head there, in this site they worship Iranian leadership.
I hope soon we will see their end in Iran, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq. And maybe we can live in peace for a while in the ME! I take Americans any day over those monkeys who think they are Persia.
Also Iranians who overthrew the americans in 79 have since then been been regretting in doing so everyday of their lives, if not rotting in dungeons or shot to death in the thousands byb the none other than their replacement , the extremist devils themselves at Iran’s Leadership.
Good for nothing trouble making scum of the earth. War in Yemen, war with Iraq, war in Lebanon plus running a militia within that country! indirect War with KSA. Influencing Syria to back away from the arab world and the west plunging it into a civil war. They don’t even have fucking refineries to extract their oil and yet they seek to make the bomb all the while their people starve and their country’s economy collapses
Oh the Iraqis are really grateful to your Yankee sugar daddy in destroying them, sure another delusional Israeli on this site. Man I know the poverty is at 30% in Israel proper, which explains where you have the time to post your garbage in sites like this. Your mossad paid which means you are U.S. tax payer fleeced and paid for.
Yep Islam is oppressive and insane but so is US, Judaism and Christianity. Move to US with nothing and have a niece life.
Just let other nations be. We know your country is interested in Iranian oil not the rights of Iranians. Still, Iranians enjoy better life in some aspects including subsidized gas than your country. If you care more about citizens right, try solving homelessness in the US, hunger among the poor, high college dropout rates in US, potholes on roads and rat infestation and gun violence
I.wont bother with a little parrot like you, because you cant adress the issue i raised, which is why do YOU PEOPLE, keep calling for fucking regime change everywhere, look at mess in Libya, enough said.
I wont let YOU PEOPLE create a narrative, I will call you out.
Concrete head? Speak for yourself imbecile.As for oil refineries, Russia has signed off an agreement with Iran to build them in Iran as well as a handful of nuclear reactors. Russia helping Iran to modernise its economy. Which is more than what you can say what the US has done. US likes to take countries back to the equivalent of the middle ages whenever it invades a country on the premise of making it “democratic and free”. Yeeeeeeeer riiiight. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria mhmm yup perfect examples of US democracy and freedom there!!! SARACASM MUCH!
Mindless drivel from the mindless. You and FreeMan (what an oxyMORON that is) are pretty sorry as far as trolling goes. You have to be more outrageous, like Simon Shitstain or rocket nose. They’re paying you chimps for results, not to just ‘show up’. All your blather sounds as if you’re describing Israel, the warmongering leach sucking the world dry. Man, if Iran blackmailed the world like Israel does, they too could rake in billion$ a year…but they have morals.
I already live in pro kiev fascist canada, i have my own battles here, instead of harassing people in their own country i try and fix my own first, to quote Don Cherry, unlike YOU PEOPLE, that keep interfering in other countries affairs, making a mess of everything in other countries.
Im not a hypocrite thanks, i will continue to call out YOU PEOPLES, because your a peice of shit trying to shove a particular narrative down my throat, and Im not buying it!
You’re too stupid to buy / understand it.
No i think canada should.mind its own fucking business, like iran should.mind its.own business and especially israel should mind its own fucking business.
The argument is YOU PEOPLE, need to stop with your regime change calls.
#FREEMAN IS A FUCKING DICK CALLING FOR MORE REGIME CHANGE.
#ASSHOLE #HASBARAT #LATER LOSER!
pussy Mike you’re too stupid, so there’s no point in explaining the argument.
I cant have an argument with a goddamn vinyl record, wich is what you are
If im so.stupid, how.come your only arguments, are denigrating iran. Its all the mullahs fault eh?? Always asking for regime change, havent enough people die to shove our capitalist liberalism down their throats. YOU PEOPLE need to stop with calling for regime changes.everywhere.
If fucking israel would act like a decent neighbor instead of mafia thugs, this regime change crap would stop.
Fix your own goddamned backyard before preaching to us about other countries and their political systems.
You fucking idiot ,what is so hard to understand!!!
why did they hike the price? didnt they just reecently found 53 million barrels of crude?
The government subsidizes gas prices majorly. They were paying around 8-cents per liter now they pay 12-cents per liter. It is almost free gas still. Because gas was so cheap millions of gasoline was being loaded onto ships and being smuggled out of the country to sell in other states for around $2 a gallon. You can see that major markup at the peoples taxpayer expense. So Iran did not really raise prices, they simply lowered how much the tax payers are directly paying for it. Also, their is not limit to how much anyone can buy. But after a certain amount then they pay like $0.30-cents per liter. Still among the worlds cheapest. https://www.presstv.com/
That explains the reality of the oil smugglers ships being impounded recently. Good point.
I was wondering if this was actually a subsidy in the real sense. What is Iran’s cost to pump and refine it? It looks like a subsidy compared to what Iran could sell it for in international markets, but why should an oil-producing country care about that? If it only costs Iran’s state-owned petroleum industry IRR10,000 (Iranian rials) a liter to produce petrol, then why not let the people benefit – especially the poor? There is no payment by the state (and taxpayers).
Not as simple as that, of course – smuggling, waste, etc. But charging anything beyond state production and refining costs are just profits for the state (= a form of taxation). No idea how this applies specifically to Iranian finances. Just saying that charging something closer to ‘international market prices’ means taxation, which any government will always claim is being returned to or used to the taxpayers benefit. Some statists just can’t stand the idea of the little people ever getting a break. Just give the state everything and they – in their wisdom – will redistribute it to the little people (or not) as they see fit.
What should happen in Russia for you to not have access to this site? :)
I don’t better then your grandpas shithole failed state known as Ukraine.
Price hikes, especially if they’re government-controlled prices, always suck – anywhere. Iran’s 95 octane gasoline was maintained at the equiv. $0.295 liter for the last year, while their consumer inflation was/is somewhere between 30% – 60% annual rate. Dumb move for Iran to slam this kind of hike all at once on everyone, but it’s about what their inflation-adjusted gasoline would cost today. It’s still the lowest in the region, and I’m sure the Iranian government is furious about all the smuggling. Ahhh.. mass punishment, just like the US!
Hurts the Iranian poor to a disproportionate degree, and Iran has something like a 25% poverty rate (poverty measured by average daily food calories below ‘minimum’). That’s mostly thanks to the US Iranian Freedom Through Starvation program sponsored by Israel. It’s a failure so far because Iranians are too stubborn and refuse to obey us or our central banks for some confounding reason. Outrageous!
Hard to say if the sanctions are a “failure” given that the Iranians have shut down the internet and are killing their own people. So the information we get is very limited.
blaming Israel is cute bit of scapegoating, but it is a positive that something is being done to curb Iranian aggression in the region.
It’s true that sanctions don’t hurt the Mullahs directly – but it’s better than war.
+1 for the laugh.
“…blaming Israel is cute bit of scapegoating, but it is a positive that something is being done to curb Iranian aggression in the region…”
That’s funny – neither Iran nor the Shia have threatened me one f’kign bit. Furthermore, I still haven’t seen any of this ‘threatening’ Iranian aggression that rates a response requiring one single drop of American blood or a dollar of my taxes. Case closed – fuck Israel’s paranoia.
Now, weaponized, exported Saudi Wahabbism terrorism has caused the death and suffering of hundreds of thousands of Middle Easterners. That qualifies as genocidal aggression of such a magnitude that I would advocate the US sending kill teams to wipe out the entire Saudi, Qatari and UAE Royal families and all radical Wahhabi clerics… and then level every last God damn thing they ever owned. All their money would be seized from the international banking system and returned directly to the people of those respective countries. Then we leave and never go back. That’s what a War on Terror looks like. Starving Iran – not so much. They seem like a perfect ally against the hated Wahhabi.
“…It’s true that sanctions don’t hurt the Mullahs directly – but it’s better than war.”
…says the psychopath without a shred of human empathy. See, that’s what the sick control freaks that ran my country said about starving Iraqis to death and otherwise punishing the most vulnerable Iraqi civilians with sanctions for a decade. A million dead Iraqi kids? Hey, it was worth it – it’s better than war! They should have overthrown Saddam like we wanted. We eventually had to go in and kill more of them, then partition their country to save them. Why did they force us to be so mean to them?
The f’king Iranians are behaving the EXACT same way. The US punishment sanctions against the most vulnerable Iranian civilians will have to continue. Iranians – especially impoverished families – must be made to suffer for their government’s disobedience. It’s their own God damn fault for ignoring our reasonable demands that Iranians overthrow their government. In the end, the US would have to resort to a bloody, homicidal war to save the Iranians. We’re humble heros like that – I’m sure they’ll thank us later. Like when we leave! Hah – just joking. That war would never end, and we never leave anywhere.
I agree you are not threatened. You are privileged. My post wasn’t about you. Iran is very threatening to 100’s of thousands of people in the region, and is currently killing its own people.
If the US would prefer to take out the Iranian forces in Lebanon and Syria instead of the sanctions – that is an option worth considering.
Iran should use LNG in cars. Works fine and less stress in refinery.
how do they identify and locate the trouble makers after the 2 days?
yes, the blessed nation of Iran will always be triumphant, they have God as their mightiest defender
Yes, that strategy makes sense, especially when dealing with ‘ US coalition paid rioters’. Arguably , that is also the situation in Hong Kong.
Let the US ‘boil ‘ grow and then lance it with a swift cut of a scalpel.