Some rioters funded by foreign states, received cash every 15 minutes: Iran’s interior minister

Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, in reference to the role of Western countries in provoking riots across Iran, says some of the rioters had been receiving money in their bank accounts every 15 minutes.

Speaking at a local conference at Tehran’s Islamic Azad University Science and Research Branch on Thursday, the minister said there were some foreign-backed organized and trained individuals who acted with extreme violence during the recent riots.

Some of these individuals have been trained in foreign countries and received funds from there, he said.

“In the case of one person who was arrested in front of the Interior Ministry, it was said that around 25 to 30 million tomans (roughly $750 to $900) were being delivered to the person’s bank account every 10 to 15 minutes.”

There were many circles active in the unrest, including organized rings of the Zionist regime, he said.

Some of these circles were paying 500,000 tomans (roughly $15) for each Molotov cocktail to those producing them, noted the minister.

Leader says riots enemy plot devised in ‘clumsy’ reaction to nation’s progress

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says the enemy acted “passively” and “clumsily” in the recent riots across the country.

Protests over the death of Amini erupted first in her native province of Kordestan and later in several cities, including the capital. Amini fainted at a police station and was pronounced dead days later on September 16 at a Tehran hospital.

Although Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi immediately ordered a thorough investigation into the case, the protests soon turned violent, with rioters fatally attacking policemen and indulging in vandalism against public property in several cities.

The foreign-backed violent riots have also claimed dozens of lives from both security forces and ordinary people as the Western media and Persian-language news networks continue to provoke riots in Iran.

An official report last Friday by Iran’s Legal Medicine Organization said that Amini’s controversial death was caused by an illness rather than alleged blows to the head or other vital body organs.

Vahidi referred to Western media’s efforts to harm the Islamic Revolution and Iranian people, noting that 1504 articles were published about the victim in the US alone in one week. From September 16 to 24, the minister maintained, 720 articles were written on the topic in the UK, 830 in Germany, 655 in France, 207 in Spain, and 497 in Italy.

Iran to severely punish organizers of foreign-backed riots: Judiciary

Iran’s Judiciary says it will not leave unanswered the actions of the main foreign-led perpetrators of the recent riots in the country.

Pointing to figures indicating that 240 million tweets have been posted on this issue, the minister said thousands of bots are behind this.

They are replacing “the truth with the untruth” to an extent that some people believe it, he lamented.

The Iranian minister also provided figures about the number of people taking to the streets in recent days. In spite of all the efforts by enemies, 45,000 people participated in demonstrations on the most crowded day and many provoked youths were among them, he said.

Noting that there are 3.2 million students at Iranian universities, the minister said only 18,000 students participated in demonstrations on the most crowded day while the Western media tried to portray that all the students were present.

Currently, Vahidi continued, the issue is not about hijab but as the Leader of the Islamic Revolution said, the enemies oppose a powerful Iran since they are seeing the growth of the country in all fields.

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