On Jan. 19, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted a seven-and-a-half-minute video documenting the demonstrations that began as peaceful protests against runaway inflation—which was “the direct result of America’s economic terrorism—unlawful tensions designed to suffocate Iran.”
The protests began peacefully; the police were unarmed, and the leaders of Iran acknowledged the complaints of the protestors. Then came what the video calls “Operation Day 13,” in reference to last June’s 12-day war, indicating that the Iranians consider the violence that was unleashed as a continuation of that effort. The video continues with graphic clips of armed men dressed in black, shooting into crowds with rifles and shotguns, buses burning, and bodies dragged through the streets, turning “protest squares into killing fields, civilians and law enforcement slaughtered in ISIS-like fashion... Precious lives lost ... by foreign bullets, not Iran’s law enforcement.” Later, “this was not spontaneous protest. This was organized terror.”
