On Saturday, April 29, 2023, a driver runs over two young mullahs who were standing in a bus stop in Qom, center of Shia! He then gets out of the car and attacks them with a knife. When police and Basij forces arrive, he tries to overcome them and take their guns. This is just the latest of clashes between people of Iran and mullahs ruling the country.
Islamic Republic officials, however, told a different story to pretend everything was just an accident and tried to cover it up. The commander of Qom police claimed it was a car accident and the driver started stabbing himself in his car, then got out and tried to attack the mullahs! He also asserted that all three were wounded and are in hospital.
Three days before, on Wednesday, April 26, in Tehran, a driver runs over a 35-year-old mullah and takes him on the hood of his car for several yards! Islamic Republic officials claimed it as an accident and arrested the driver on April 29, despite the fact that earlier they had said the assailant is unknown. On May 3, Amir Ghoroghchi, the mullah who was on the hood for “20-30 yards”, explained the assailant’s motive: “According to him, he was looking for a job, but they hired a “rishoo” (a man with long beard, typical of regime goons) instead of him!” Ghoroghchi claimed the driver was “under the influence of Western propaganda!”
The same day, in Babolsar, Mazandaran province, a security guard at a branch of Bank Melli opened fire and killed Abbasali Soleimani, Khamenei’s representative in Sistan & Baluchestan and member of Expediency Council! Despite clear video from the scene, Islamic Republic officials downplayed it to a “personal issue” and “misunderstanding!”
These incidents or so-called “accidents” are not a new phenomenon in Iran. Iranians have been shouting “mullahs must get lost” in every anti-regime protest they’ve had in the past few years, especially in the most recent one, which was sparked by the state-murder of Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022. Iranians began “turban tossing” across Iran to show their despise and disgust towards the mullahs. It trended from October 20, 2022. It reached international media and every day there was a video from brave dissidents, from all ages. Schoolgirls/boys would run behind a mullah and knock his turban off his head!
On the other hand, Islamic Republic officials, with the help of their vast propaganda network, claim they are very popular. Ahmad Khatami, Khamenei’s close confidant and Tehran’s Friday Sermon, has repeatedly said: “Mullahs are very popular in Iran!” Alamol-Hoda, father-in-law of Ebrahim Raisi and Khamenei’s Representative in Mashhad had spewed the same rhetoric several times in the past.
Meanwhile, mullahs like Ayatollah Alavi-Boroujerdi tweeted: “What is happening?… We have taken the wrong path, we must be aware! The gap between the people and us has expanded. Officials, please do not say things to upset people. Do not make empty promises….”
Alavi knows the gap gets bigger every day because officials continue to restrict women, threaten citizens of retaliation and intimidate families. For instance, Fallahian, former MOIS minister, recommended mullahs to take defense classes and “be ready to retaliate!” Every day, there are reports of shops being shut down because they serviced “women with improper hijab!” Several prominent actresses were charged with “disturbing public’s opinion” and summoned to Islamic Revolutionary Court because they did not have hijab in public.
Mullahs are manifestation of political Islam. People of Iran are tired of the hypocrisy, cruelty, and corruption of the entire system. Besides the social injustices and discrimination against women, impunity of Islamic Republic goons, record-breaking devaluation of IRR, unleashed inflation – to the point that officials have refused to publish the rate for several months- and rampant poverty have led to a change in quality of Iran Revolution. People have nothing to lose and Islamic Republic knows it.
