Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said Tuesday that the authorities «will show no mercy» to «enemies», among whom he cited participants in the anti-government demonstrations that have rocked the country since September following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.
«The arms of the nation are open to those who were deceived, but it will show no mercy to traitors,» he has affirmed, before adding that the situation the country is going through is «a war between factions.»
He also warned that «enemies have mobilized their forces during the unrest», among them «defenders of the monarchy and terrorists of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI)», declared as a terrorist group by Tehran.
«The enemies have used all their power to prevent Iran’s progress, but as of today they admit that all their pressures have failed. The enemy is today facing a nation that has decided to progress,» he said, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported.
«We have learned from the martyrs to live with hope,» he said, while stressing that «the country has achieved great progress in all fields, which explains the enemy’s anger.» «All the enemy’s efforts against the Islamic Republic have failed shamefully,» he concluded.
Iranian authorities have so far executed two people convicted for their role in the mobilizations, while several thousand have been detained. Among them are more than 20 facing the death penalty, according to a report published on December 10 by the local daily ‘Etemad’.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard recently confirmed that more than 300 people have been killed since the start of the protests, in what was the first official toll since the mobilizations began over the death of Amini, a member of Iran’s Kurdish minority. The figure is lower than the one provided by the NGO Iran Human Rights, which points to more than 400 deaths as a result of repression by the security forces.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
