Iran’s State Media Repeated Warnings of a Looming Uprising

 

 

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Written by
Mansoureh Galestan

Whitewashing regime crimes, repeating anti-western rhetoric, demonizing the opposition, and minimizing social and economic crises, have been the common theme in Iranian state media. But Iran’s volatile society has forced the regime’s sprawling disinformation assembly line to acknowledge the facts on the ground.

Protests are spanning across the oil-rich country as Iran experiences its worst financial crisis in a century, forcing the tightly controlled state media to warn the regime about another nationwide uprising. They also admit how the regime’s disastrous economic policies and its corruption worsen Iran’s economic crunch.

“Ebrahim Raisi’s government keeps playing with prices. This is like shelling people’s lives and damaging their livelihood,” the state-run Jahan-e Sanat daily acknowledged on May 17, referring to the recent price hikes.

On Tuesday, the state-run Mostaghel daily also warned Raisi’s government that “there is no room for trial and error” and “having hands deeper in people’s pockets.”

Raisi’s government has increased prices by removing the preferential rate rial exchange rate that was used to import essential goods. To calm the society, the regime has promised to give four million rials worth of subsidies to people, which would further increase inflation and wouldn’t help Iranians as the prices continue to grow.

“In view of the current inflation and the ongoing declining value of the national currency, coupled with the reduction of the country’s monetary resources in coming years which prevent [the regime] to increase the subsidies, the current four million rials subsidies wouldn’t help people to buy their needs,” the state-run Mardom Salari daily acknowledged on May 16.

“Only people will suffer from this decision. They cannot tolerate this much financial pressure and the skyrocketing prices. We should mind our security too. The economic pressure on people certainly increases social protests and [uprisings]. The recent protests in southwest Iran are testaments to this fact, and we cannot ignore them,” the paper added.

“The government has announced that the prices of some products such as poultry and flour would increase, but other products should maintain their prices! Since when do products listen to orders? If orders could control economic factors, the government would have been able to control the dollar exchange rate,” the state-run Alef website wrote on May 17.

“I really hope that these unfounded decisions wouldn’t destroy the social capital because this would be dangerous,” the state-run Eghtesasd-Pouya daily wrote on May 15.

“The government should not test people’s tolerance. People’s patience has a limit. These measures could cause incidents [uprisings] like those in 2018 and 2019, or even worse because people see their lives endangered,” the state-run Bahar daily quoted MP Ghasem Saedi on May 12.

Iran’s state media and officials repeatedly warn the regime of the people’s reaction and an uprising on the horizon. But does the regime have any solution to prevent such an uprising?

 

Iran’s State Media Repeated Warnings of a Looming Uprising

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