The Iranian regime threatens to suppress people during Fire Festival (Chaharshanbeh Souri, March 16)

The Mullahs regime fearing another mass anti-regime uprising during the annual Fire Festival celebration (Chaharshanbeh Souri, March 16), has given special guidelines to its repressive forces to stop students’ participation in the festivity.

Some of their actions reported:

- Summoning parents of students to schools to put pressure on them to prevent their children from going out on the day of festivity.  Regime's authorities are warning them that if their children were to be arrested, they will not be released until the last day of Iranian New Year holidays in April.

- Members of Bassij force in schools have been told to write essays about the dangers associated with Fire Festival.  Prizes will be given to 150 Bassij members for writing such essays.

- The state-run radio and TV station have been ordered to broadcast series of programs with the theme of “enlightening and warning” families and the young general in the run-up to Fire Festival. To this end a 90-minute program has been recorded that shows the dangers of fire crackers and Fire Festival ceremonies in addition to another 30-minute program that introduces the Fire Festival in a way approved by the regime. These two pieces are going to be shown widely by various TV channels, which are all run by the regime.

Common theme in messages and contacts received from people in Iran is very obvious people are not going to be intimidated and lured by such ploys and are going to continue with their uprising by chanting “Down with Khamenei” and “death to the principle of velayat-e faqih (absolute rule of clergy).”

Source:
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran- NCRI