An Annual Review of Lies: Protesters "Wanted to Kill Half of Iranians"

Publishing fake news and making false claims in the Islamic Republic of Iran is nothing new. And yet between November 22, 2019 and March 19, 2020, the volume of lies propagated by the Iranian government was unprecedented. The six subjects covered by fake news pieces over those four months were the November 2019 protests and the numbers of people killed, Iran’s retaliation for the US assassination of General Ghasem Soleimani, the downing of the Ukrainian passenger jet by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp and, finally, the coronavirus epidemic.

On the occasion of the Iranian new year, IranWire examines government misinformation campaigns on these issues in a new six-part series.

The first part focuses on lies published about the November protests, which began on November 15 last year, following the sudden and steep increase in gas prices, and over just four days resulted in the highest number of casualties during street protests in the history of the Islamic Republic.

 

“They had attached dynamite to oil pipelines”

Immediately following the November protests, Iranian officials attributed a wide range of of “terrorist” actions to the protesters, although most of the charges were so bizarre that government media outlets did not repeat the allegations on later occasions.

“We were told that some [protesters] were blocking shifts from changing over at the Asaluyeh oil refinery and that they had attached dynamite to the pipelines,” said government spokesman Ali Rabiei on November 20. He also quoted Communications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi as saying that the protesters “wanted to cut the telephone lines to Isfahan.”

On November 21, General Salar Abnoush, the paramilitary Basij Organization’s commander of operations, called the protests “a full-fledged war against the regime and the [1979] Revolution” and claimed that “the protesters wanted to slaughter half of the Iranians. ... For the first time, we were dealing with extraordinary coordination and organization. They were carrying bags with tools that we had never seen before, like cutting torches and scissors that can cut through the strongest locks. Wherever they went, they plundered immediately and set the location on fire.”

On the same day, President Hassan Rouhani’s advisor Hesamodin Ashna compared the protests with the military operation launched by the opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization (MEK) against the Islamic Republic at the end the 1980-88 war between Iran and Iraq. During that war the MEK had allied itself with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. He pointed out that that operation was quashed by a successful Iranian counter-attack and that was what the protesters were getting.

On November 26, Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli claimed that during the protests the security forces had to deal with “an armed and machete-wielding army” and said that “we encountered teams of four or five people, including a woman, who conducted attacks with Molotov cocktail, machetes and knives. ... They had targeted national infrastructure including highways and thoroughfares.”

Their claims matched how Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei viewed November protests. On November 27, he described the protests as “a movement of destruction, felony and murder” and a “vast and very dangerous conspiracy” that was financed by “a lot of money.”

 

The Role Played by “America, Israel, Saudi Arabia and France” and “Germans, Turks, Afghan and Danes”

From the beginning of the protests, Iranian officials and media outlets associated the protesters with foreign elements. This became the basis for extracting “confessions” from many detainees.

On November 18, a statement by the Revolutionary Guards accused the protesters of being associated with the United States and announced that US officials were the “ringleaders of malice and treachery against Iran.”

On November 19, the hardline newspaper Kayhan, quoting from “confessions” by a number of detainees, claimed the detained protesters said that: “It was arranged that, if we were identified, we would contact our [foreign] ’handlers’ and leave Iran. If we were not identified, then we were supposed to receive funds and prepare ourselves for future riots.”

Government mouthpieces claimed that “foreign nationals” were also involved in the November protests events. On November 19, Kayhan also quoted the director of a Qom seminary, that had been attacked by a number of protesters, as saying that some of attackers “were masked and were carrying Colt pistols” and that “some of them were not Iranian and talked in languages other than Persian.”

Fars News Agency, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, reported on the same day the arrest of a “seven-man” team who had attacked banks and were “nationals of an eastern neighboring country.” A day later, Fars reported the arrest of a number of “leaders” of protests in Karaj and wrote that a number of them were “German, Turk and Afghan” and had been found to be carrying “special equipment for sabotage.”

On November 21, General Abnoush, from the Basij Organization, spoke of the formation of a “coalition of demons in the true sense of the world” that included “Zionists, America and Saudi Arabia.” He also announced that “during interrogations we gained a lot of information” and promised that “further information will be announced after [more] confessions” are obtained.

On November 22, General Ali Fadavi, Deputy Commander of the Revolutionary Guards, said that “all the evil-doers” of the world had supported the protests. “No country instigated these riots as much as France did,” he announced. He did not however provide any evidence or specifics about the alleged role played by France.

On November 28, the Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili announced the arrest of a “retired member of the Iranian embassy in Denmark” and said that “a search of his home uncovered espionage equipment and other electronic equipment.”

On December 19, Mohammad Jafar Montazer, Attorney-General of Iran, talked about the role played by “America, Israel and Saudi Arabia” in the protests and expressed his hope that security officials would broadcast the information they had found in the national media.

Despite all these attempts to shape a narrative that the protests were driven by foreign plots, a month and a half later, Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri undermined the credibility of such claims when he said on January 1 that “no foreign national was arrested during November events.”

 

The Role Played by the “Usual Suspects”

Government propaganda linking protests to foreigners and outside groups who want to overthrow the Islamic Republic – the “usual suspects” – are to be expected.

On November 17, following a closed-door meeting of parliament with Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, some representatives quoted him as saying there was “evidence” that attacks on security forces had been organized by the “counter-revolution” and the “hypocrites”, which are derogatory terms used by the islamic Republic for the MEK organization.

In their November 18 statement, the Revolutionary Guards also claimed that the “hypocrites” and the household of the former Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, were involved in the protests, referring to them as “the evil and criminal little group” and the “sinister and evil Pahlavi household.”

On the same day, a Tehran province division of the Revolutionary Guards announced that two members of the paramilitary Basij and one of its own members had been “martyred” in a way similar to “assassinations by the hypocrites in the 1980s”.

On November 20, Ramazan Sharif, a spokesman for the Revolutionary Guards, claimed that the “rioters” were being financed by “monarchists.”

On December 17, Mohammad Javad Larijani, spokesman for the Judiciary’s High Council for Human Rights, said that a “new ISIS group” was involved in the protests, adding the vague and unhelpful explanation that “the old ISIS talked about Islam but these new one has other things to say.”

Besides these general statements about the protests, official media outlets also reported on “confessions” by specific detainees.

On December 17, Iranian state TV aired a documentary called “The Truth of the Matter” in which a number of detainees confessed on camera. For instance, one detainee said that he was taking orders directly from Al Ahwaz, an Arab separatist group. Another said that he had become a member of an opposition entity called Turquoise Army on Instagram. A third detainee confessed that he had been contacted on behalf of Maryam Rajavi, the MEK leader. A fourth said he was in touch with counter-revolutionary and secessionist groups. And so on.

A second Iranian television program aired the confessions of a detainee who is known, it said, as "Karate Fatemeh,” who has “a record of cooperating with counter-revolutionary groups” and “has met in northern Iraq with counter-revolutionary groups.”

These shows were accompanied by similar items published by the Revolutionary Guards in various provinces.

On November 18, for example, the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Organization in Fars province announced that it had succeeded in arresting “two leaders associated with enemy groups” who had incited people with promise of “money and residency permits” in a foreign country.

The same day, the Revolutionary Guards in Alborz province claimed that it had arrested 150 “leaders of unrest” and that they had confessed to having received training “inside and outside” of Iran.

On December 13, the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Organization in Isfahan province announced that it had arrested four “members of an active monarchist network” and had discovered “illegal pamphlets, Sun and Lion flags,” the official Iranian flag under the Pahlavi monarchy, “tools for writing political graffiti and bottles for fire bombs” in their hideout.

On February 1, the first death sentences against November protesters were issued. The notorious Judge Abolghasem Salavati of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court sentenced Amir Hossein Moradi, Mohammad Rajabi, and Saeed Tamjidi to death, all of whom were arrested during the protests, on the charge of “participating in sabotage and arson against the Islamic Republic.”

What is bizarre is that the Judge Salavati also sentenced the three to long prison terms and lashes as well as the death sentences. A source close to their families, who wanted to stay anonymous, told the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) that the detainees say they confessed to their “crimes” under torture. They added that "we were tired of injustice in the country, and we went to the street to protest."

 

Related Coverage:

IranWire Reports on November 2019 Protests

Iranians’ Legal Right to Protest, 26 November 2019

New Round of Forced Confessions Start in Iran, 22 November 2019

Four Days That Shook Iran, 20 November 2019

Who Decided to Raise the Price of Gas in Iran and Why?, 18 November 2019

Iran Bans Journalists From Reporting on Protests, 17 November 2019

Iran Pulls a “North Korea” by Cutting off Internet in Response to Protests, 17 November 2019