Despite Mr. Rouhani’s diplomatic language, it was clear the demonstrators would be given no leeway. The deputy interior minister, Hossein Zolfaghari, told the semiofficial Jamaran website, “From tonight the unrest will be controlled more seriously.”
Roji Kurd: The government will not allow an “insecure situation to continue in Tehran,” Brig. Gen Esmaeil Kowsari, deputy chief of the main Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps base in Tehran, told the semiofficial ISNA news agency. “If this situation continues, the officials will definitely make some decisions and at that point this business will be finished.”
On Monday, a crackdown by the government and security services was building, and riot police officers with water cannons were out in full force in Tehran, the capital.
Additionally, six protesters were killed and three policemen injured Monday night as protesters sought to seize the police station in Qahdarijan in Esfahan Province, state news radio reported on Tuesday.
Elsewhere in Esfahan, state radio also reported the killing of an 11-year-old child and a 20-year-old by “rioters” in Khomeinishahr Shahr and the death of a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in an attack on a police station in Kahrizsang.
In all, about 450 people have been arrested in Tehran alone since the protests began on Saturday, the semiofficial news agency ILNA reported, citing Ali Asghar Naserbakht, the political security deputy for the Tehran governor’s office. There were also arrests in provincial towns.
The cities and towns of Kurdistan are now fully militarised and occupied by security forces. Martial law has been declared and total military rule exists in most part of the Kurdish regions. Despite restrictions, mass protests were held in the cities of Kermanshah, Sanandaj, Kangavar and Lorestan.
According to number of videos posted to Roji Kurd, regime forces opened fire on protesters, in the city of Kermanshah.
Protesters have set a police box in Kermanshah on fire.
In Lorestan province, protest rallies have turned deadly. Four people were killed and many injured in the city of Doroud, in Lorestan during a rally. In the coming days, widespread protests are expected, in response to regime’s brutal treatment of demonstrators.
The cities of Sanandaj, Saqez, Marivan, Mahabad and Baneh are now completely militarised, and security forces control every single movement of people in these cities.
In the city of Saghez, government officials even prevent small gatherings of two-three people.
On Monday evening, government officials forced local residents and businesses owners to close down all their shops and businesses in the city of Sanandaj.
According to a report sent by a Roji Kurd’s journalist, several citizens were arrested between Eqbal Square and sixth Bahman and Molavi Squares in Sanandaj.
The number and identity of the detainees is not known at this stage by the Roji Kurd.
In some parts of the city, the sound of shootings has been heard, but so far there has been no report of injuries to the citizens.
Over the past two days, snipers have been stationed over the main buildings in central areas in the cities of Mahabad and Sanandaj.
People who live in rural provinces, long viewed as supporters of the authorities, are now leading most of the demonstrations. And while people in Tehran have also taken to the street, the capital is not the center of the protests, as it was during the so-called Green Movement in 2009. In Tehran, many middle-class Iranians share the discontent but also fear insecurity.
The frustrations that led to the protests also appear different from the sentiments in 2009.
The strength and volatility of the protests have caught Iranian politicians by surprise. Some have denounced them as “riots,” while others have acknowledged that the widespread frustrations at their root can no longer be ignored.
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