As strikes and protests spread to several major cities across Iran on Wednesday, the head of the judiciary threatened to intensify crackdowns and prosecute protesters.
Merchants and business owners in the traditional bazaars in the cities of Tabriz, Isfahan, Mashhad and Kerman closed to protest the dire state of the economy and the plunging currency, according to videos on social media, interviews with witnesses and Iranian media reports. The bazaars of Iran have both practical and symbolic significance — not just where people buy things, but also an emblem of the economy, like stock markets in the West.
In Tehran, shops in the traditional bazaar, where the recent wave of protests began, remained shuttered for an 11th day. Inside its labyrinth of passages, security forces deployed tear gas and beat some in the crowd of shopkeepers and workers gathered there, according to interviews with two shop owners who asked that their names not be published because they feared retribution.
The two shopkeepers, who are members of trade unions, said in telephone interviews that the government’s efforts to mediate with trade representatives so far had failed. One of the shopkeepers said that despite fears of financial losses, solidarity had prevailed to keep shops closed and pressure on. It was unclear how long this could last.
Tehran’s municipal officials announced that the metro stop for the bazaar, a major transportation hub, would be shut down indefinitely. On Tuesday, security forces threw tear gas inside the enclosed underground station, causing commuters and people coming to join protests to scatter, according to the two shopkeepers.
Anti-riot police officers have taken to the streets of Tehran and other cities on motorcycles, chasing crowds and beating demonstrators, according to videos on BBC Persian and social media. Some videos show security forces firing shots at the crowd; in other videos, gunshots can be heard. In Shiraz, military roadblocks were set up on a tree-lined boulevard with military vehicles patrolling.
Yet the government of President Masoud Pezeshkian struck a conciliatory tone, with Fatemeh Mohajeran, a spokeswoman, saying on social media on Wednesday that “all protesters are our children and every blood spilled pains us.”
By contrast, the head of the judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, and the country’s chief of security forces, Gen. Ahmad Reza Radan, told Iranian media that stern measures would be taken against protesters.
“We promise the Iranian nation that these people will be identified at any time and in any place, and will be prosecuted and punished until the last person is arrested,” said General Radan, according to Iranian state media.
Videos from multiple cities taken by protesters and passers-by showed crowds chanting “Death to the dictator,” and “Freedom, freedom, freedom,” and “Don’t be afraid, we are all together.” In many places protesters demanding the end of the nearly five-decade rule of the Islamic Republic targeted the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, shouting, “Khamenei is a murderer, his rule is void.”
Human Rights Activists News Agency, a Washington-based group that documents human rights abuses in Iran, said at least 36 people had been killed, including four minors, and two security agents and over 2,000 people had been arrested.
Sadegh Parvizzadeh, a wildlife photographer, posted a video of himself on social media with his face riddled with pellet-gun wounds. With one eye closed and blood oozing from his head and face, he recounted how security forces had attacked him on Tuesday.
“How can you fire at your own countrymen? Killing a person is like a game for them; they think we are prey and they are hunters. I swear to God, we are also citizens of this country, we are not rioters, not separatists, not spies for the enemy. We have pain,” Mr. Parvizzadeh said in the video, which has gone viral.
The Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, described protests in several western provinces with populations of Kurd and Lur minorities as organized mob riots, saying the crowd was armed with guns, knives and homemade hand grenades. Tasnim said about 600 security officers, including plainclothes Basij militia, had been injured in clashes with protesters. The Times could not independently confirm these accounts.
Measures announced by the government in recent days to avert economic collapse and portray a sense of control have backfired. The Central Bank announced it would no longer offer an official exchange rate on the U.S. dollar to manufacturers and importers that was more than half the black market rate, which is the real marker for inflation and currency value. That had contributed to corruption — but prices of basic goods quickly tripled because industries that rely on the cheaper rate to import raw materials now have to buy a dollar at a free market rate three times as expensive.
“They have lost control, and it’s clear the government has no plan and we are being played,” said Simin, a 34-year-old who runs a catering business, in a telephone interview from Tehran who asked that her last name not be used out of fear of retribution. She said she had dashed to the supermarket in her neighborhood to stock up on cooking gas and eggs, finding that prices had more than tripled in 48 hours.