© AFP
A scorched gas station set ablaze by protesters during a demonstration against a rise in gasoline prices in Eslamshahr, near the Iranian capital of Tehran.
On November 15, a wave of protests engulfed over 100 Iranian cities as the government resorted to an extremely unpopular measure: a fuel tax hike of as much as 300%, without a semblance of a PR campaign to explain the reasons.
Iranians, after all, have reflexively condemned subsidy removals for years now - especially related to cheap gasoline. If you are unemployed or underemployed in Iran, especially in big cities and towns, Plan A is always to pursue a second career as a taxi driver.
Protests started as overwhelmingly peaceful.
But in some cases, especially in Tehran, Shiraz, Sirjan and Shahriar, a suburb of Tehran, they quickly degenerated into weaponized riots - complete with vandalizing public property, attacks on the police and torching of at least 700 bank outlets. Much like the confrontations in Hong Kong since June.
President Rouhani, aware of the social backlash, tactfully insisted that unarmed and innocent civilians arrested during the protests should be released. There are no conclusive figures, but Iranian diplomats admit, off the record, that
as many as 7,000 people may have been arrested. Tehran's judiciary system denies it.
According to Iran's
Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli,
as many as 200,000 people took part in the protests nationwide. According to the Intelligence Ministry, 79 people were arrested in connection with the riots only in Khuzestan province - including three teams, supported by "a Persian Gulf state," which supposedly coordinated attacks on government centers and security/police forces.
The Intelligence Ministry said it had arrested eight "CIA operatives," accused of being instrumental in inciting the riots.
Comment: Adam Schiff was too much of a coward to show up to defend his own report: