Foreign States Funding Rioters across Iran: Interior Minister
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Regarding how Western countries instigated riots throughout Iran, Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi says that some of the rioters were receiving money deposited into their bank accounts every 15 minutes.
Speaking on Thursday at a local conference held at the Islamic Azad University Science and Research Branch in Tehran, the minister said that some organized and trained individuals with support from abroad participated in the recent riots with extreme violence.
He said that some of these people have received funding and training from abroad.
“In the case of one person who was arrested in front of the Interior Ministry, it was said that around 25 to 30 million tomans (roughly $750 to $900) were being delivered to the person’s bank account every 10 to 15 minutes.”
There were many circles active in the unrest, including organized rings of the Zionist regime, he said.
Some of these circles were paying 500,000 tomans (roughly $15) for each Molotov cocktail to those producing them, noted the minister.
Death of a young Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, sparked demonstrations first in her native province of Kordestan and then in a number of other cities, including the capital. Amini passed out in a police station, and on September 16, a Tehran hospital declared her dead.
A thorough investigation into the incident was immediately ordered by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, but the unrest quickly turned violent as rioters killed police officers and destroyed public property in several cities.
The foreign-backed violent riots have also claimed dozens of lives from both security forces and ordinary people as the Western media and Persian-language news networks continue to provoke riots in Iran.
An official report last Friday by Iran’s Legal Medicine Organization said that Amini’s controversial death was caused by an illness rather than alleged blows to the head or other vital body organs.
Vahidi referred to Western media’s efforts to harm the Islamic Revolution and Iranian people, noting that 1504 articles were published about the victim in the US alone in one week. From September 16 to 24, the minister maintained, 720 articles were written on the topic in the UK, 830 in Germany, 655 in France, 207 in Spain, and 497 in Italy.
Pointing to figures indicating that 240 million tweets have been posted on this issue, the minister said thousands of bots are behind this.
They are replacing “the truth with the untruth” to an extent that some people believe it, he lamented.
The Iranian minister also provided figures about the number of people taking to the streets in recent days. In spite of all the efforts by enemies, 45,000 people participated in demonstrations on the most crowded day and many provoked youths were among them, he said.
Noting that there are 3.2 million students at Iranian universities, the minister said only 18,000 students participated in demonstrations on the most crowded day while the Western media tried to portray that all the students were present.
Currently, Vahidi continued, the issue is not about hijab but as the Leader of the Islamic Revolution said, the enemies oppose a powerful Iran since they are seeing the growth of the country in all fields.
