Iran’s president appeals for national unity as anti-government protests continue

Security forces have rounded up an untold number of demonstrators, as well as artists who have voiced support for the protests. Local officials report at least 1,500 arrests.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Tuesday appealed for national unity and tried to allay anger against the country’s rulers, even as the anti-government protests that have engulfed the country for weeks continued to spread to universities and high schools.

Raisi acknowledged that the Islamic Republic had “weaknesses and shortcomings,” but repeated the official line that the unrest sparked last month by the death of a woman in the custody of the country’s morality police was nothing short of a plot by Iran’s enemies.

“Today the country’s determination is aimed at cooperation to reduce people’s problems,” he told a parliament session. “Unity and national integrity are necessities that render our enemy hopeless.”

His claims echoed those of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who blamed the United States and Israel, the country’s adversaries, for inciting the unrest in his first remarks on the nationwide protests on Monday. It’s a familiar tactic for Iran’s leaders, who have been mistrustful of Western influence since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and commonly blame domestic problems on foreign enemies without offering evidence.

The protests, which emerged in response to the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after her arrest for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code, have embroiled dozens of cities across the country and evolved into the most widespread challenge to Iran’s leadership in years. A series of festering crises have helped fuel public rage, including the country’s political repression, ailing economy and global isolation.

The scope of the ongoing unrest, the most sustained in over a decade, still remains unclear as witnesses report spontaneous gatherings across the country featuring small acts of defiance – such as protesters shouting slogans from rooftops, cutting their hair and burning their state-mandated headscarves.

The hardline Kayhan daily on Tuesday tried to downplay the scale of the movement, saying that “anti-revolutionaries,” or those opposed to the Islamic Republic, “are in the absolute minority, possibly one per cent.”

But another hardline newspaper, the Jomhuri Eslami daily, cast doubt on government claims that foreign countries were to blame for the country’s turmoil.