Dozens of Post-Election Protesters Arrested in Yasuj

More than 100 people have been arrested in southwestern Iran for taking part in weekend-long demonstrations against the outcome of last Friday’s elections.

Judiciary officials in Yasuj, the capital of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmad province, said those detained were protesting in connection with the city council election results.

Videos received by IranWire show a vast deployment of police and security forces across the city, with officers in trucks and on motorbikes engaging with furious locals.

“The city is practically under martial law,” a source on the ground told IranWire. “The internet was cut off until last night [Monday] and now it’s working, but very slowly.

“We have no information on the number of people arrested or where they are being held. But we do have it on good authority that three people were shot and are now in a grave state. Two are still unconscious and the third is in an unstable condition.”

Shortly after the protests broke out on Saturday, a video purporting to show the three protesters who had been shot – one of them apparently been killed – was widely shared online.

But the governor of Yasuj denied the reports were true, saying the video had come from an earlier incident involving a gas leak in the city.

On Monday, the third day of the demonstrations, Yasuj prosecutor Ali Malek-Hosseini confirmed the number of arrests. He added that they included the governor’s own representative and a number of people guarding the ballot boxes.

The protests were sparked by a popular candidate’s apparent election to – and then subsequent removal from –the eight-member Yasuj City Council.

According to the official results, the top candidate eventually received more than 10,500 votes and the seventh around 7,600.

“These protests began in response to the manipulation of the number of votes,” IranWire’s source said, “and the clear foul play in the election results for Yasuj City Council.

“At first, a Mr. Esmail Yousefi was declared the council’s fifth elected member. But a day later it was announced that there had been a counting error, and his name would be swapped with that of a Mr. Iman Javedaneh, who had been listed in eighth place.

“Had there really been a counting error, the number of votes for the other candidates should have changed as well. But that didn’t happen.”

Nepotism at Work?

Another reason the altered outcome was so hotly contested in Yasuj was that Iman Javedaneh is a cousin of Mehdi Roshanfekr, the principalist MP for Yasuj, who also formerly served as governor of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmad.

“At the governor’s office in Yasuj,” the resident told IranWire, “almost everybody is a friend of Dr. Roshanfekr. There is very clearly nepotism at work and they clearly wanted to get Mr. Javedaneh onto the city council.”

A report by the news website Fararu cites officials as saying the results were changed due to “problems with the electronic voting system”.

This has done nothing to allay the suspicions of locals, many of whom firmly believe the vote was rigged. These suspicions were also deepened by a notable delay in the announcement of the final results.

In one of the videos, Esmail Yousefi, the candidate whose initial share of the vote ended up being downgraded, can be seen standing among the protesters and telling them: “The Islamic Republic wants neither a clean vote nor a clean person.”

In recent days Yousefi’s supporters been seen marching through the streets, chanting “Our vote is our right”. Although the demonstrations remained peaceful, they were violently shut down by police and security forces.

Accusations of “Cash for Votes”

In a letter to Majid Ahmadi, the city’s governor, other city council election candidates have claimed a “cash-for-votes” racket was going on at some of the polling stations on Friday.

They also claimed some election supervisors had interfered with the process in favor of particular candidates, ignoring violations of the law.

The public prosecutor of Yasuj, however, has insisted the “integrity” of the election in the city was not compromised, adding : “There has been no manipulation of the electronic voting system.”

He also warned demonstrators to “act within the law,” adding: “The Islamic Republic is not weak and will end any kind of riot.”

Later on, amid the uproar on Sunday, June 20, Esmail Yousefi issued a statement asking his supporters to remain calm.

“Considering that the results of the election for the city council have been finalized,” he said, “I, Esmail Yousefi, will follow up on my complaints through legal means.

“Therefore, refrain from holding any rallies in the city, outside the governor’s office or in the streets leading up to this office. It would pain me if any harm came to the honorable people of my city.”

Alongside the street arrests, IranWire’s source added that one protester, Rahman Rouydel, had been detained for posting videos online in which he criticized both the elections and the Islamic Republic. He is understood to have been transferred to Tehran.

“As of now,” the source said, “his family has not been able to obtain any information about him. This is true of other detainees as well.”

The situation in Yasuj is thought to have subsided slightly since violent crackdowns last night. “We no longer hear gunshots,” the observer says. “Clashes continue in some areas but generally it’s quieter. But there is still fire under the ashes.”

 

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