TEHRAN: Iranian lawmakers held a closed-door session on Sunday to discuss the deadly protests that hit the country last week, while more pro-regime rallies were held in several cities.
“The security officials confirmed that most of those arrested have been released,” Gholamreza Heydari, a reformist lawmaker in Tehran, told parliament’s ICANA website.
He was speaking after the session in which MPs grilled Interior Minister Abdolrahmani Rahmani Fazli, Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi and secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani over the days of unrest that straddled the new year.
Mohammad Reza Kachouie, another deputy, said most of those detained were unemployed people, “without university degrees.”
“The parliament meeting principally looked into the condition of the people, the economic situation and unemployment. The enemy is trying to infiltrate the country by using these issues,” he told ICANA.
A reformist MP Bahram Parsaie said blame should not focus on President Hassan Rouhani but on decades of poor governance.
“I hope we face up to reality and take lessons from past mistakes,” ICANA quoted him as saying.
The protests began on December 28 over economic issues before quickly spiralling out of control and turning against the regime as a whole, leaving 21 dead and hundreds arrested.
Police have previously said they have released many of the hundreds arrested during the unrest, but that the main instigators were “in the hands of the judiciary.”
Some lawmakers voiced concern over the Internet controls put in place during the unrest, including a ban on Iran’s most popular messaging app, Telegram, which officials said had been used to incite violence.
“The parliament is not in favor of keeping Telegram filtering in place, but it must pledge that it will not be used as a tool by the enemies of the Iranian people,” Behrouz Nemati, spokesman for the parliament’s presiding board, wrote on Instagram, which was also temporarily blocked during the unrest.
Many Iranians use Telegram as their main source of news and a way of bypassing the highly restrictive state media, with almost a third of Iran’s 80 million people using the app daily.
Some 9,000 online businesses have been disrupted by the blocking, semi-official news agency ISNA reported, quoting a report by the culture ministry’s digital media center.
Pro-government rallies were again held in several cities on Sunday, this time in Qazvin, Rasht, Shahr-e Kurd and Yazd.
Tens of thousands of people have participated in similar rallies in the past few days.
The rallies are “the people’s response to the rioters and troublemakers and their supporters,” said state television.
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Iran parliament holds special meeting on protests
Iran parliament holds special meeting on protests
Syrian Alawites protest in coastal heartland after mosque bombing
- Syrian Alawites took to the streets on Sunday in the coastal city of Latakia to protest after a mosque bombing that killed eight people in Homs two days before
LATAKIA: Syrian Alawites took to the streets on Sunday in the coastal city of Latakia to protest after a mosque bombing that killed eight people in Homs two days before.
The attack, which took place in an Alawite area of Homs city, was the latest against the religious minority, which has been the target of several episodes of violence since the December 2024 fall of longtime ruler Bashar Assad, himself an Alawite.
Security forces were deployed in the area, and intervened to break up clashes between demonstrators and counter-protesters, an AFP correspondent witnessed.
“Why the killing? Why the assassination? Why the kidnapping? Why these random actions without any deterrent, accountability or oversight?” said protester Numeir Ramadan, a 48-year-old trader.
“Assad is gone, and we do not support Assad... Why this killing?“
Sunday’s demonstration came after calls from prominent spiritual leader Ghazal Ghazal, head of the Islamic Alawite Council in Syria and Abroad, who on Saturday urged people to “show the world that the Alawite community cannot be humiliated or marginalized.”
“We do not want a civil war, we want political federalism. We do not want your terrorism. We want to determine our own destiny,” he said in a video message on Facebook.
Protesters carried pictures of Ghazal along with banners expressing support for him, while chanting calls for decentralized government authority and a degree of regional autonomy.
“Our first demand is federalism to stop the bloodshed, because Alawite blood is not cheap, and Syrian blood in general is not cheap. We are being killed because we are Alawites,” Hadil Salha, a 40-year-old housewife said.
Most Syrians are Sunni Muslim, and the city of Homs — where Friday’s bombing took place — is home to a Sunni majority but also has several areas that are predominantly Alawite, a community whose faith stems from Shiite Islam.
The community is otherwise mostly present across their coastal heartland in Latakia and Tartus provinces.
Since Assad’s fall, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor and Homs province residents have reported kidnappings and killings targeting members of the minority community.
- Alawite massacres -
The country has also seen several bloody flare-ups of sectarian violence.
Syria’s coastal areas saw the massacre of Alawite civilians in March, with authorities accusing armed Assad supporters of sparking the violence by attacking security forces.
A national commission of inquiry said at least 1,426 members of the minority were killed, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor put the toll at more than 1,700.
Late last month, thousands of people demonstrated on the coast to protest fresh attacks targeting Alawites in Homs and other regions.
Before and after the March bloodshed, authorities carried out a massive arrest campaign in predominantly Alawite areas, which are also former Assad strongholds.
Protesters on Sunday also demanded the release of detainees.
On Friday, Syrian state television reported the release of 70 detainees in Latakia “after it was proven that they were not involved in war crimes,” saying more releases would follow.
Despite assurances from Damascus that all Syria’s communities will be protected, the country’s minorities remain wary of their future under the new Islamist authorities, who have so far rejected calls for federalism.
The attack, which took place in an Alawite area of Homs city, was the latest against the religious minority, which has been the target of several episodes of violence since the December 2024 fall of longtime ruler Bashar Assad, himself an Alawite.
Security forces were deployed in the area, and intervened to break up clashes between demonstrators and counter-protesters, an AFP correspondent witnessed.
“Why the killing? Why the assassination? Why the kidnapping? Why these random actions without any deterrent, accountability or oversight?” said protester Numeir Ramadan, a 48-year-old trader.
“Assad is gone, and we do not support Assad... Why this killing?“
Sunday’s demonstration came after calls from prominent spiritual leader Ghazal Ghazal, head of the Islamic Alawite Council in Syria and Abroad, who on Saturday urged people to “show the world that the Alawite community cannot be humiliated or marginalized.”
“We do not want a civil war, we want political federalism. We do not want your terrorism. We want to determine our own destiny,” he said in a video message on Facebook.
Protesters carried pictures of Ghazal along with banners expressing support for him, while chanting calls for decentralized government authority and a degree of regional autonomy.
“Our first demand is federalism to stop the bloodshed, because Alawite blood is not cheap, and Syrian blood in general is not cheap. We are being killed because we are Alawites,” Hadil Salha, a 40-year-old housewife said.
Most Syrians are Sunni Muslim, and the city of Homs — where Friday’s bombing took place — is home to a Sunni majority but also has several areas that are predominantly Alawite, a community whose faith stems from Shiite Islam.
The community is otherwise mostly present across their coastal heartland in Latakia and Tartus provinces.
Since Assad’s fall, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor and Homs province residents have reported kidnappings and killings targeting members of the minority community.
- Alawite massacres -
The country has also seen several bloody flare-ups of sectarian violence.
Syria’s coastal areas saw the massacre of Alawite civilians in March, with authorities accusing armed Assad supporters of sparking the violence by attacking security forces.
A national commission of inquiry said at least 1,426 members of the minority were killed, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor put the toll at more than 1,700.
Late last month, thousands of people demonstrated on the coast to protest fresh attacks targeting Alawites in Homs and other regions.
Before and after the March bloodshed, authorities carried out a massive arrest campaign in predominantly Alawite areas, which are also former Assad strongholds.
Protesters on Sunday also demanded the release of detainees.
On Friday, Syrian state television reported the release of 70 detainees in Latakia “after it was proven that they were not involved in war crimes,” saying more releases would follow.
Despite assurances from Damascus that all Syria’s communities will be protected, the country’s minorities remain wary of their future under the new Islamist authorities, who have so far rejected calls for federalism.
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