Tehran: The Iranian parliament could hold a special session as early as Sunday to look into the causes of anti-government protests that have gripped the country, several state-run news agencies said. The interior minister, the head of intelligence and the security council chief are all expected to attend, added the ISNA news agency in reports on Saturday. Hardliners in Iran have put the blame for the demonstrations squarely on foreign conspirators, a sentiment echoed by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his reformers, though admitting that not all the demonstrations could be steered from the outside by “Iran’s enemies.”
Hence the parliament’s desire to find “the roots” or the protest. Jailed demonstrators will receive legal assistance as well.
A special commission has also been set up to track the fates of those arrested in recent demonstrations in Iran, especially that of detained students, said a spokesman for Tehran University on Saturday, according to ISNA. While there are no official numbers regarding how many people have been arrested over the past week during anti-government protests that have swept the country, an estimated 1,000 to 1,800 people are being detained nationwide, with about 100 of them said to be students.
Science Minister Mansour Gholami said that about a quarter of the students arrested have since been released, though he failed to give any exact numbers.
The fate of those arrested has been the topic of serious concern since Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami urged worshippers in a sermon on Friday to treat protesters as enemies of Islam, adding that”there should be no mercy for them,” particularly flag-burners.
The sentiments of Khatami and other staunch government supporters were heavily criticised by Rouhani and his reformists in the parliament.
Posts on social media on Saturday supposedly showed demonstrations across the country overnight, though they can’t be independently verified.
Iran’s other media outlets did not report on protests.
The UN Security Council held a meeting on Iran on Friday under heavy pressure from the US that mostly featured criticism of Washington.
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the US move to call the meeting was a “bogus pretext” to include “purely political issues” surrounding Iran on the Security Council agenda and said that outside countries should not interfere with the demonstrations there. Nebenzia went on to ask mockingly whether the Security Council should have had meetings to discuss internal US issues such as protests in Ferguson, Missouri, or the Occupy Wall Street movement. — dpa
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