Iran: Former MP Accuses Senior Officials of Ignoring Pleas to Stop Crackdown on Protests

 People protest against increased gas price, on a highway in Tehran, Iran November 16, 2019. (Reuters)
People protest against increased gas price, on a highway in Tehran, Iran November 16, 2019. (Reuters)
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Iran: Former MP Accuses Senior Officials of Ignoring Pleas to Stop Crackdown on Protests

 People protest against increased gas price, on a highway in Tehran, Iran November 16, 2019. (Reuters)
People protest against increased gas price, on a highway in Tehran, Iran November 16, 2019. (Reuters)

A video interview with former Iranian MP Mahmoud Sadeghi revived talks about the Iranian authorities’ crackdown on the popular protests that swept the county in 2019 over the hike of petrol prices.

The interview revealed details of a closed-door meeting between deputies in the former parliament and senior officials in the security services, including the Secretary-General of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani. Sadeghi said that the senior security officials have ignored calls to stop the killing of protesters.

Iran witnessed massive protests in mid-November 2019 in wake of the government’s sudden decision to raise gasoline prices by 300 percent.

The protests began in the outskirts of the oil city of Ahvaz, in the southwest of Iran, before spreading across the country, prompting the authorities to cut off internet service and use live ammunition to disperse the demonstrators.

Minister of Interior Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said in an interview last summer that about 230 people died in the protests, adding that some were killed by unlicensed weapons.

Sadeghi said that the security officials responded by “no” when he asked them during that meeting about whether the authorities found evidence on the role of Iranian opposition groups and parties in the protests and strikes.

“They definitely didn’t find anything; all of the protesters were civilians…,” the former MP told the interview, adding: “I told Mr. Shamkhani at the time: What would you do if the people did not withdraw? Would you kill them? Shamkhani replied: “We will strike.”

In the first official response to Sadeghi’s statements, the General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for National Security hinted at prosecuting the former deputy, saying his account was “false” and “unrealistic.”

The new information revealed by Sadeghi come a month after Shamkhani made controversial remarks in an interview with the state ISNA news agency, blaming the administration of President Hassan Rouhani for “mismanagement” and “lack of coordination” in implementing the decision to raise the fuel prices.



Australia Says Will Not Commit Troops in Advance to Any Conflict

Residential properties are seen near the Sydney Harbour Bridge in, Sydney, Australia, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams
Residential properties are seen near the Sydney Harbour Bridge in, Sydney, Australia, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams
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Australia Says Will Not Commit Troops in Advance to Any Conflict

Residential properties are seen near the Sydney Harbour Bridge in, Sydney, Australia, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams
Residential properties are seen near the Sydney Harbour Bridge in, Sydney, Australia, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams

Australia will not commit troops in advance to any conflict, Defense Industry Minister Pat Conroy said on Sunday, responding to a report that the Pentagon has pressed its ally to clarify what role it would play if the US and China went to war over Taiwan.

Australia prioritizes its sovereignty and "we don't discuss hypotheticals", Conroy said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"The decision to commit Australian troops to a conflict will be made by the government of the day, not in advance but by the government of the day," he said.

The Financial Times reported on Saturday that Elbridge Colby, the US under-secretary of defense for policy, has been pressing Australian and Japanese officials on what they would do in a Taiwan conflict, although the US does not offer a blank cheque guarantee to defend Taiwan.

Colby posted on X that the Department of Defense is implementing President Donald Trump's "America First" agenda of restoring deterrence, which includes "urging allies to step up their defense spending and other efforts related to our collective defense".

China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own and has not ruled out the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. Taiwan President Lai Ching-te rejects China's sovereignty claims, saying only Taiwan's people can decide their future.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, speaking in Shanghai at the start of a six-day visit to China that is likely to focus on security and trade, said Canberra did not want any change to the status quo on Taiwan.

Conroy said Australia was concerned about China's military buildup of nuclear and conventional forces, and wants a balanced Indo-Pacific region where no country dominates. He said China was seeking a military base in the Pacific, which was not in Australia's interest, Reuters reported.

'GOAL IS NO WAR'

Talisman Sabre, Australia's largest war-fighting exercise with the United States, opened on Sunday on Sydney Harbour and will involve 40,000 troops from 19 countries, including Japan, South Korea, India, Britain, France and Canada.

Conroy said China's navy might be watching the exercise to collect information, as it had done in the past.

The war games will span thousands of kilometers from Australia's Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island to the Coral Sea on Australia's east coast, in a rehearsal of joint war fighting, said Vice Admiral Justin Jones, chief of joint operations for the Australian Defense Force.

The air, sea, land and space exercises over two weeks will "test our ability to move our forces into the north of Australia and operate from Australia", Jones told reporters.

"I will leave it to China to interpret what 19 friends, allies and partners wanting to operate together in the region means to them. But for me... it is nations that are in search of a common aspiration for peace, stability, a free and open Indo-Pacific," he said.

US Army Lieutenant General Joel Vowell, deputy commanding general for the Pacific, said Talisman Sabre would improve the readiness of militaries to respond together and was "a deterrent mechanism because our ultimate goal is no war".

"If we could do all this alone and we could go fast, but because we want to go far, we have to do it together and that is important because of the instability that is resident in the region," Vowell said.

The United States is Australia's major security ally. Although Australia does not permit foreign bases, the US military is expanding its rotational presence and fuel stores on Australian bases, which from 2027 will have US Virginia submarines at port in Western Australia.