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More than 5,000 people in Mashad, northeast Iran, protested the verdict for the public execution of a woman. The protest held on the city's Fajr bridge continued from 12:00 to 4:00 p.m. on Friday, September 4, where the people chanted slogans against the regime's leaders.
The Revolutionary Guards Corps and the State Security Force intervened to disperse the crowd. The action, however, enraged the protesters and lead to extensive clashes between the two sides.
During the three-hour clash, demonstrators attacked government centers and Guards Corps' vehicles.
Terrified of public fury and continuing clashes, the regime's officials refrained from executing the victim in public.
Youths Stage Anti-Government Rallies in Three Major Iranian Capitals, Iran Zamin News Agency, September 10
Some 1,000 university applicants staged a protest gathering on Tuesday in Tehran's Villa street and hundreds of others gathered in front of Tehran's Azad University on Palestine street, chanting slogans against the regime's leaders.
More than 1,000 others held a similar protest on Monday in the capital's Telaqani street in front of the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education. They, too, chanted antigovernment slogans.
To guarantee its agents' entry to the universities, the regime has allocated a 40% quota to its Guards Corps members and Intelligence Ministry agents. The remaining 60% is given to applicants after rigid security and background checks.
Similar protests were staged by 1000 applicants in Kermanshah, western Iran, last Saturday, and by 3,000 university applicants, most of them women, in Shiraz in front of the local office of Kayhan daily, to protest against the regime.
To thwart the spread of the march and the public from joining the youths in Shiraz, a large number agents from the State Security Force, equipped with anti-riot gear, were dispatched immediately to the scene. They charged into the crowd, beating up the protesters and local people who supported them, and arrested a number of the marchers.
Iranian Merchants on Strike Over Tax Hikes As Recession Deepens, Agence France Presse, September 10
TEHRAN - Merchants in the central Iranian town of Esfahan have gone on strike to protest rising taxes as the country's recession deepens, a newspaper reported Thursday.
Around 3,000 Shops in Esfahan's bazaar, the city's largest commercial center, stopped trading on Wednesday because of "unfair" taxes, said the English-language Iran Daily.
One shop owner complained that local taxes had been doubled on four separate occasions this year.
The government has increased taxes in a bid to make up for falling revenue from oil sales, a move which has provoked deep resentment among businesses throughout the country.
Zan (Woman) newspaper reported Wednesday that Tehran baazar, particularly the textile sector, was in the deepest recession for 30 years, with most merchants facing bankruptcy.
"Since the beginning of this year (the Iranian year starts in March), trading is in recession and merchant are faced with bankruptcy," it said.
Federal Government Details Opposition to NJ Family Who Sued Iran, The Associated Press, September 8
In the awkward position of opposing an American family that wants to make Iran pay for sponsoring terrorism, the Justice Department argues in newly filed court papers that the family's strategy could undermine U.S. foreign policy.
The family of Alisa Flatow, 20, who was killed in a 1995 bombing in Israel, won a judgment for $247.5 million by suing Iran under a 1996 anti-terrorism law. The West Orange, N.J., family tried to begin collecting the judgment by forcing the sale of three Washington properties still owned by the Iranian government.
But the U.S. government stepped in and asked a judge not to force the sales.
The Flatows and their lawyer say the U.S. government's position in the case sends the wrong signal to state sponsors of terrorism.
The Islamic Jihad group, which Israel and the United States maintain is backed by Iran, claimed responsibility for the bombing that killed Flatow. The law under which the Flatow family sued Iran allows Americans to seek damages for terrorist acts from nations that sponsor international terror.