Listen | A major revelation by Ali Shakouri-Rad, former Sixth Parliament MP and former Secretary-General of the Union of Islamic Iran People Party, about the regime’s organized suppression

In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.

Look, I think part of the shock that still exists in society is due to the fact that people do not correctly know the truth of what actually happened—what the real reality was. I’ll say it very briefly. The real truth was that people had accumulated a great deal of dissatisfaction. It was completely clear that these people would protest. Their protests had been going on for years—in the form of demonstrations and such—by retirees, teachers, workers, and others. By then, it had become widespread. It was obvious that something large-scale was going to happen.

Now, my analysis is that the initiation of these widespread protests was essentially carried out with the planning of certain institutions, probably intelligence bodies themselves. That is, when it started in the bazaar, they knew this would happen; they timed it. They said (this is my analysis) that at the end of the academic term, students would act, since universities were about to close. There were also a couple of days of holidays ahead, and they launched it—and as always, it got out of their control. How did it get out of their control? Suddenly Reza Pahlavi came forward and issued a call. I don’t think anyone—not Reza Pahlavi himself, not the reformists, not the principlists, nor the security institutions—no one thought that this many people would respond to Reza Pahlavi’s call.

Apparently, the assessment of the intelligence or security institutions—or those involved in such assessments—was that nationwide about 1.5 million people participated in the demonstrations. This surprised everyone. And of course, Reza Pahlavi—whether knowingly or unknowingly, I don’t know—issued a call that was accompanied by an invitation to violence. That is, his call was not just for protest; it was also a call to seize or destroy governing institutions. Naturally, when such a call is issued, and in addition to calling people into the streets, there appear to be certain cells that seem to have been previously trained—by Iran International and others—to carry out these actions, to engage in violence; and there were probably weapons and such involved as well.

At this point, I know nothing beyond claims regarding whether there were actually sabotage or terrorist cells present in the demonstrations. And whether, in 400 cities across the country where demonstrations took place, and in 900 locations for which the statistics are more or less official, Israel, Mossad, or Reza Pahlavi had violent operational cells everywhere—terrorists who turned all of this into violence—or not. It’s very hard to believe. And if we do believe it, then his statement would be correct that the first step should be holding the security institutions accountable. You cannot have two security institutions that monitor everything, and then, after operational cells have formed and weapons have been distributed, claim they were unaware! So we would have to conclude that there were probably spy elements within these security institutions themselves.

A serious question for anyone who wants to analyze “what the reality was” is this: where were the security institutions in all of this? No one has answered this so far. No official has resigned; no one has been held accountable. Therefore, if we want to evaluate what happened—well, I’ll later talk about Dr. Pezeshkian’s statements and what they did to people’s psyche—what he essentially did was scold the governing institutions a couple of times, asking, “Where were you when this happened?” He repeatedly talks about beheadings and arson, but not once does he say where the security institutions were when all this happened.

Now, when they say—he says, “I insulted the nation”—I say they treated the nation as fools. People feel insulted intellectually by this: such a massive event happens, and the ruling system considers itself responsible for nothing and gives no answer as to why this happened in the country. While the system claims, “I am in control, and your security is my responsibility.” Where is that security they claimed to provide? They said we had to fight ISIS in Syria so it wouldn’t come to Iran, and then we see ISIS-like actions inside Iran itself. So where were you? What exactly did you do?

These things must be examined. This is one part of the issue. I personally do not believe the official media narrative—that “this was Mossad” or “Reza Pahlavi’s operational teams carried out this level of violence”—and I think many people don’t believe it either. If Iran International is lying, then these outlets are lying too. If they engaged in violence, these did as well. Based on what? Based on the fact that security institutions in Iran, in every protest, have injected violence in order to use that violence as a pretext for suppression. This has always been the case, and it continues to be the case—and it’s getting worse by the day.

I state this here clearly: in the journal of Imam Hossein University, a PhD student in policing (I have the article, though I don’t recall it offhand right now) explicitly wrote and stated that “one of the methods of suppressing unrest is manufacturing deaths among one’s own forces.” This killing of one’s own forces is their project for suppression. That is, a Basij member must be killed, a police officer must be killed, a mosque must be burned, a shrine must be set on fire, a Quran must be burned—everything must happen so that they can suppress the unrest (as they call it). Therefore, I absolutely do not believe—and never have believed—that Mossad or the opposing side’s operational teams did these things. I find it at least as believable, if not more so, that these actions were carried out by those who wanted to suppress the protests.

So we need to know the reality of what happened, and I am deeply saddened by this. The day after the incident, Dr. Pezeshkian’s son-in-law came to the hospital because his mother was ill. I told him exactly these things. I said: “Dr. Pezeshkian spoke honestly, but why did he honestly believe the reports that the security institutions put in front of him?” Those reports are full of lies. People experienced the reality in the streets; they saw what happened. Then the president comes and, based on those reports—well, frankly, he set people’s hearts on fire.

Before this, that same Thursday night when the Congress of the Ettehad Party was held, I spoke there for about 10–12 minutes. I said that the only solution I propose for resolving the problems is that we go to Mr. Khamenei and tell him—or ask him, or pressure him—that “you yourself elevated Dr. Pezeshkian to the presidency.” Dr. Pezeshkian’s presidency was the Leader’s own project. We helped it too; at the time we didn’t know what the project was, but we did what we believed was right. Even now I don’t say we did something wrong. Our action was correct.

Dr. Pezeshkian was elevated by the Leader and became president. We should go to the Leader and say: this president whom you elevated, who is now seen as a moderate force in society—come and delegate authority. The Leader, at his age, may not be able to change his views, but he can say: “I step aside and delegate authority to someone else.” Let that person—whom the people voted for and whom I approved—handle foreign and domestic policy.

I then gave an example. I said that in Morocco, King Hassan II declared that the military, intelligence, and religious institutions would remain under the king, while the government would fully belong to the people. The people would vote, choose a government, and that government would run the country. Since then, Morocco has experienced stability and even during the Arab Spring nothing happened to it. I said this is one example; let’s do something similar in Iran.

But in practice, with the speech Dr. Pezeshkian gave on television, he transformed himself from a moderate force into one side of a polarized divide that had formed in society. We now have no moderate force capable of doing anything, and this is a major problem. Moderate forces are always society’s capital in times of crisis. Losing them is a great loss. Dr. Pezeshkian burned himself very easily, and I think he should not have done that.

I know that everything he said, he said sincerely—he genuinely believed it—but he should not have believed it. His flaw was that he had not done party work and lacked sufficient maturity for crisis conditions. He acts sincerely, and that sincerity has carried him forward so far, but he lacked a team that could effectively support him—a vigilant team. I don’t want to analyze further and say that some members of that team sometimes understand what’s going on but remain silent for their own interests.

If I had access to Dr. Pezeshkian, I would give him concrete criteria. For example, the case of Ruhollah Ajamian in Karaj: how was he lured in? They told him to wear Basij clothing and enter the crowd. Who delivered the first blow? How did enraged people then deliver subsequent blows? Who was there, ready and filming? And who was ready to arrest everyone present within 24 hours? And who accused the radiologist doctor who was there? They wanted to create an “executed specialist doctor” to intimidate society—and they did. With the Ruhollah Ajamian case, they shut down the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement (as they put it). This is one example; I can give others. In the university dormitory incident, for instance, the bus that was set on fire on Nosrat Street—who set it on fire? Or later cases. Even Ahmadinejad, who was the president at the time, later came and said these things himself.

So it is astonishing that Dr. Pezeshkian believed the security institutions’ reports, went on television, said those things, and burned himself—and burned people’s hearts. People who had seen with their own eyes what happened and knew the truth.

As for Reza Pahlavi, I won’t even dwell on him; his case is clear—he is a shallow and despicable person. In reality, he is being promoted by Israel, not the United States; the U.S. still hasn’t accepted him and is struggling with the issue. Some people have gathered around him out of desperation. Many of those shouting “Pahlavi will return” or chanting “Long live the Shah” have no real attachment to Reza Pahlavi; but because they have no refuge left, they have taken refuge in him. Reformists used to be their refuge, but every time they tried to reform things, the path was blocked, and reformists were made detested in society. No refuge was left for them, so they turned to Reza Pahlavi.

And now it is a disgrace for us that 47 years after the magnificent Islamic Revolution—which in my view was truly a unique revolution—we have reached a point where the youth of this country (and you know the statistics: most of the killed and detained were between 15 and 25 years old) are chanting these slogans. At that time, Farah said, “We created youths who carried out a revolution.” You—what kind of youths did you create? These are the youths we created, and this is what they are doing. All of these youths have parents who participated in the Islamic Revolution, and now these youths are standing against their parents.

Or take Behzad Nabavi, 84 years old, who says: “I regret every revolution and am alien to any new one.” Why? Because of how the revolution’s outcome turned out.

In any case, unfortunately, some people in this country are deliberately ignoring reality. Almost everything is clear now; their livelihood depends on pretending not to see the truth. We must understand that the darkest day in Iran’s history has been recorded, and this is not something we can easily erase in the coming years—unless the United States attacks and utterly devastates everything so that all this disappears within it. Otherwise, if it remains, this day will stand as the darkest day in Iran’s history, because many completely innocent people were killed—young people whom you cannot say deserved to die just because they shouted a couple of slogans.

I am astonished. I heard something yesterday and it has been occupying my mind. Even in our own family we have Basij members and IRGC members. Someone close to one of them that he said, “Yes, they still say it was a good thing.” I ask: what have you turned this poor Basij member into? He says, “Yes, they should have been killed.” This is the creation of extreme polarization. The Basij or IRGC member I know is a very pure person—I know him in my family—he hasn’t benefited from any rent-seeking at all, but he is ideologically committed. And then he says those young people who were killed deserved it. What have we created? I grieve for both sides.

On the other hand, some of those youths now say (someone was recounting this today): “Wherever we find a Basij member, we will burn him.” What is this situation? Should someone open fire in a dead-end alley and kill people? That Basij member did that; he wasn’t inherently a murderer, he wasn’t a mercenary—he was a Basij member, probably even with a war background.

Now they tell us that the ruling system felt an “existential threat” and, to preserve itself, did whatever was necessary—“for the preservation of the system, we will do whatever it takes.” But how did this existential threat come into being? Let me explain. This phrase—“preserving the system”—was said by Imam Khomeini when reactionaries stood against legislation in the Islamic Republic. He told them that preserving the system is among the most obligatory duties. He was saying this to those who claimed Islam did not allow certain actions. He did not say this against the people—people whose right to vote he recognized hundreds of times. The greatest thing Imam Khomeini did was recognizing the right to vote for all members of society. They ignore all that and cling to this one sentence. While Imam repeatedly said: “Whatever the people say must be implemented. You are not the guardians of the people; you are their representatives. Even if the people decide something against their own interests, you must carry it out. You have no right to stand against the people.”

I myself have said that unfortunately we carried out a revolution. If we had known how to be reformists, maybe even at the time of the revolution we would have been reformists and chosen a path that wouldn’t have led us here after 47 years. At the time, we were full of passion and sincerity. I’ve told my bicycle story several times, but I’ll tell it again here.

A few days after the revolution, they said universities were reopening. I was a first-year student. My father had bought me a racing bicycle for 1,200 tomans. I went to the university with it. I had a lock and chain and would lock it to a tree or a pole wherever I went. When I was about to lock it to a pillar near the cafeteria, I said, “We’ve had a revolution!” I unlocked it and just looped the chain around the seat instead of locking it to the pillar. I went and talked with students for about an hour about what to do. When I came back, the bicycle was gone—it had been stolen.

I wanted to tell Mr. Abdolalizadeh this: the greatest psychological blow is a blow to one’s beliefs. Killing people—even killing one’s child—can be endured; but when your beliefs are shattered, it is extremely, extremely hard to bear. At that time, the bicycle didn’t even matter to me anymore; I just said, “So what happened to the revolution?”

I’ll stop here. I also wanted to say something about a possible U.S. attack, but I won’t. Thank you very much.