Tehran, Iran – Tehran and Washington are clashing again after weeks of protests in Iran as the United States organizes a meeting of the United Nations Security Council over the unrest that erupted after 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini died in morality police custody last month.
The US and Albania – another major critic of the Iranian government – will hold an informal UNSC meeting on Wednesday, first reported by Portal and also confirmed by Iranian state media.
Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi and Iranian-born actress and activist Nazanin Boniadi – who the Iranian state considers anti-establishment – will speak at the meeting along with UN investigator on human rights in Iran Javaid Rehman, according to Portal. Other UN member states and human rights groups may also attend the meeting, according to reports.
But while the outlet cited a note saying the meeting will “highlight the ongoing oppression of women and girls and members of religious and ethnic groups in Iran,” Tehran has offered a different narrative.
Iran’s government website, IRNA, quoted unnamed “diplomatic sources” on Saturday as saying Washington is organizing the meeting in response to a rare joint report late Friday by Iran’s intelligence ministry and the intelligence branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the US as the main culprit behind the protests.
“Rather than responding to the points raised in the Iranian intelligence community, the US is fleeing forward and showing selective support for human rights with specific political objectives,” the source was quoted as saying.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations made the same point in a statement, citing the US as the “prime suspect of the unrest” in Iran.
“The US and its allies have consistently used such a platform (the UN) to advance their political agendas, even at the cost of violating international rules and the UN Charter,” it said, accusing Washington of two counts in supporting the Iranians to measure measure.
Women and ethnic Kurds and Baloch have featured prominently in the protests.
The commander of the elite IRGC warned protesters not to take to the streets on Saturday. “Don’t go out into the street! Today is the last day of the riots,” Hossein Salami said.
Iran’s top authorities, including Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei, have publicly accused the US, Israel and others of orchestrating unrest across the country that is believed to have killed scores, injured others or arrested.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric expressed concern on Friday, urging the Iranian authorities to address “the legitimate grievances of the population” and “condemn all incidents that have resulted in the death or serious injury of protesters.”
What does the Iranian intelligence report say?
The lengthy joint intelligence report that Tehran claims motivated the upcoming UNSC meeting paints a picture of reports influencing the Iranian authorities’ stance on the protests.
According to the report, the US and some of its allies had long planned – and delayed – riots similar to those currently taking place in Iran and made plans for various stages before, during and after such riots.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was at the forefront of the US effort and was backed by the intelligence agencies of the UK, Israel, Saudi Arabia and other countries, it claimed, based on “perfectly credible” information.
The Iranian intelligence community claimed the US has spent billions of dollars over the years building a network of sympathetic organizations and individuals, holding many gatherings and also courses to teach “hybrid wars and soft subversion” of the Iranian establishment.
These fully paid courses were held in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Italy and South Africa, among others, with or without the knowledge of the governments of those countries.
The report uses the initials of two Iranian female journalists who were “trained through US mafia regime courses in foreign countries” and “played the role of being the first sources to produce news for foreign media” on developments regarding Amini that led to the protests.
The reporters accused by Iranian intelligence are Niloofar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi, who were arrested shortly after protests erupted last month and remain detained in Tehran’s Evin prison. Hamedi was among the first to report Amini’s death in hospital, while Mohammadi traveled to Amini’s hometown of Saqqez to cover her funeral.
The intelligence report also alleges that CIA officials met with Kurdish separatist groups in neighboring Iraq’s northern Erbil region in late September to ask them to increase their role in the unrest in Iran. In late September and early October, the IRGC repeatedly bombed positions in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region to punish the “terrorist groups” it said were stationed there.
Foreign Persian-language TV channels, which Tehran blacklisted this week, and social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram, which have been banned, were also found in the intelligence report to have been influenced and manipulated by Washington in its efforts to counter the Iranian state.