Paulo Coelho to Reza Pahlavi: ‘Shut Up’!
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – With nearly 15 million followers on Twitter, Brazil's best-selling novelist Paulo Coelho strongly castigated Reza Pahlavi, the son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who was deposed in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, for supporting recent unrest in some Iranian cities.
“Shut up. SAVAK is dead, and the Iranian people will rally to support their country if you ever ask for another coup d'etat like the one orchestrated by CIA in 1953,” Coelho said in a comment posted on his official Twitter account on Thursday.
His tweet came after Reza Pahlavi, in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, called on US President Donald Trump’s administration to encourage US technology companies to provide communication services to Iranians to protest the Islamic Republic amid protests in some Iranian cities against high prices.
Pahlavi, who has lived in exile since his father was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, said he wants to see Iranians “determine their own fate out of their own free will.”
He lauded Trump and members of his cabinet for speaking in support of the protests.
Last week, peaceful protests over rising prices and economic problems broke out in some Iranian cities, but the unauthorized gatherings turned violent after a number of opportunists, some of them armed, vandalized public property and launched attacks on police stations and government buildings.
Siding with the rioters were a number of US officials, including Trump.
Iranian security officials say they have hard evidence that the protests were directed from abroad.
Officials say many rioters arrested in the unrest have been trained by the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) or had links with the Takfiri groups.
Following the unrest, people of Iran held several demonstrations across the country to condemn the violent riots and acts of vandalism, and voice support for the Islamic Republic’s Establishment.
Iranian officials maintain that people have the right to stage protests to express their opinions, as long as rallies comply with the legal conditions.
