Iranian opposition newspaper shares statistics on recent protests

Al-Arabia – An Iranian opposition newspaper shared “an unpublished report” sent by Interior Minister Abdel Ridha Rahmani to President Hassan Rouhani detailing figures and statistics and the reasons for the wave of demonstrations that swept through the country.

According to the report referred to by the opposition newspaper, the protests in the last days of 2017 and early this year, spread in 100 Iranian cities, and turned into violence in 40 cities.

The report pointed out that the protests “did not have political backgrounds, and it is not clear who are their main leaders.”

During the protests, 5,000 people were arrested and 900 security forces were injured.

According to the report, some dissatisfaction in various political, economic, social, cultural and security areas were behind the protests.

“The accumulation of dissatisfaction and frustration finally appears in one place,” the report said.

“The issues that led to the protests were economic pressures included unemployment, although more than 60 percent of the protesters were working, they were not unemployed,” he said