I have 3 ok im like of the lad and youre in the stream today protests in a wrong what happened while the countrys internet was shot off well speak to people inside iran for an update and since several of our Community Members for quested todays topic we want to hear from you what questions do you have for our guests send us a tweet or join the live chat streaming right now on youtube. This is just the ramsey im the Communications Director of for human rights in iran and youre in the green. A sharp increase in the price of petrol sent to ronnie ends to the streets this month in antigovernment demonstrations that turned deadly and destructive protesters burned banks government buildings and clashed with Police Following a november the 15th fuel hike according to Amnesty International more than 140 people were killed in various protests across the country that death toll has been disputed by the iranian government part of terrans response was to shut down the internet for several days creating even more challenges in verifying the extent of the armrest on wednesday irans Supreme Leader said the protests have been contained he also blamed demonstrations on a conspiracy involving the United States so with us to discuss irans fuel price protests and the fallout there are more deserving journalist and Diplomatic Correspondent with the independent into her say it was. A political analyst and professor of media studies also into her own aljazeera correspondent jabari and everybody is really good to have you i actually want to start with a comment from november 27th from irans Supreme Leader and the reason he felt the protests got under way and who was behind the protests have a miss. Chad i had a scare there with it and i sat in that future that it was a deep extensive and very dangerous conspiracy that cost them the us so much money and effort they wanted to use an opportunity to carry out this move which was an act of destruction arson murder and vandalism under the pretext of a gasoline price increase they thought that they had found the opportunity and brought their troops to the field this move was destroyed by the people that pay those are the most of all that is one. Of us is involved its a plot if you will looking at what happened over the last couple of days how much a kite to rise what happened what took people out on the streets. Well thanks for having me well let me explain it this way that protests are different from briards you know all throughout the war when austerity plans come into effect and people take out to the streets to express their fuel jaeger and their concerns it will witness the scent of paul throughout europe and in the west following that through 1008 economic meltdown we are still witnessing the yellowest are out for economic reasons in paris out the 4555 weeks and the same happened in iraq president rouhani brought up. Gas rationing and gas hike the gas price. Plan into effect in a wrong way as a matter of fact i dont i dont think that you would find any kind of economist throughout the world that would support payment of a nationwide subsidy is special leave for petrol for the whole nation but what matters here is that 1st no honea it is the wrong time in a wrong way actually for exercising a state solve this issue and you need to go through stages 1st is export studies in this case its been done and then the legitimacy of the executor of the plan the one that implements it was ok but the problem here is with the 3rd step that is the vote up in public support he took people off guard people were surprised everyone was surprised and then people took out to the streets to their legitimate grievances against this Economic Policy a prison rouhani that came by surprise but from a certain point and as usual the United States and in number of other you know Opposition Forces that it meant that actually their involvement through the opposition media and you know abroad. In england at least in london there have been 2 t. V. Channels the opposition members who believe in the regime change even some of them through war and force and the exhaust of a graduate can i just get you can pause for a moment because you pull up so many different issues and i feel that we can all contribute to some of those issues let me just go this is just let me just let me say that they they try as usual the United States and a number of these regime change guys that are playing into the hand at the u. S. Like the any right up there are some of the former xabi trying to hijack the protests and as a matter of. Those the best route riots and those who help are barely legitimate grievances against this economic when when they stop their security was at the state they got back home and if youre in pro stop the moment that i suggest that i pause for a moment because i have several issues that youre talking about at the same time i want other people to to weigh in here dorsey so when most of us started was that there just a medic grievances and perhaps this was not the best economic move at the time money could have been done better you were reporting on these protests how did you count to rise them for us as an audience at aljazeera for instance. Well i think most of us right initially everybody was shocked imagine waking up one morning on a weekend friday morning november 15th and finding out the price of gasoline had tripled overnight without any reason given by the government i think people initially thought that by taking their grievances out on the streets it would help to put pressure on the government to reverse this decision but once we heard from the Supreme Leader on that following sunday we knew that this decision was final he expressed his support for the governments decision and he said that anybody who protests and this tries to destroy government buildings he described these people as thugs and hoodlums and then we heard within a few hours from the Intelligence Ministry who said that the words of the Supreme Leader are final and that they will do everything they can to bring security and stability back to their country and then the monday of that week we heard from the revolutionary guards they also issued a similar statement saying that they are now going to go out in full force and restore order in the country i think its worth noting also that. This protest actually didnt start in the capital it started in it which is one of the largest cities in the country and that was the starting point and then it spread to other cities in the country but it we never really saw that kind of mobilization of that kind of violence at all in the capital during the entire time and i would say within the 1st 3. 00 to 4. 00 days once the revolutionary guard in the in terrell Intelligence Ministry came into the scene and they sided to prevent this from spreading it actually went away quite quickly and also the most important thing i think was the internet shutting off within 24 hours that these riots broke out by saturday evening we started noticing that our mobile phones no longer had internet and then everything slowed down and by the evening it was. An all out blackout in the country and that is something thats very rare it hasnt happened here before and it was a very very specific decision that was made it wasnt just made by the information minister or the interior ministry it was made by a specific organization that is called this a big decision that was made it wasnt just made by the information minister or the interior ministry it was made by a specific organization that is called the Supreme NationalSecurity Committee and they are tasked with serious issues making very important decisions its headed by the president Hassan Rouhani as well as the head of the judiciary and the speaker of parliament and their decisions are actually. The final say after they make decisions is approved by the Supreme Leader so this group has a tremendous amount of power and the sides of what direction the country goes and domestically as well as with it when it comes to irans Foreign Policy and also its Nuclear Program so ok there are a lot of different elements at play but i think the most surprising decision was the internet blackout and to that point because of the internet blackout it was so difficult and still is really to figure out what is happening on the ground and what the realities are so i want to bring up this ill give this to you actually in our base and what your service saying i mean here on twitter says watch the videos which have been shared by hash tag iranian protesters you can not find someone saying please make the gasoline cheaper they all say they dont want this regime anymore so talk to us about what youre seeing and what you are hearing and why people are out in the streets was it really the fuel increase the fuel price increase or was that just the spark to underlying discontent just so to adore so saying this decision wasnt just made by the administration it was made by all different factions the highest echelons of power in the entire state so. Its not just one side of the political system and it was definitely ignited by the hike in fuel prices like torso and we can you wake up and its tripled. But then it quickly turned political the slogans become political whereas the economy is essentially political because if you see the mismanagement of the government if you see high corruption within different factions all the way to the top of this state it just adds to the anger in people feel like the economic misery the crisis that theyre in is actually part of the way the country is being ruled which is very political and thats why we hear very radical slogans on the street its actually not the 1st time were hearing this has been a continuation of the end of 2017800 that were series a series of protests a multiple cities across iran but whats new is that. There had been intermittent shutdown of internet in areas where there are protests on mobile phones or things like that but this complete blackout of the entire country home and phone is just a very terrible sign. Basically no one thing the new of this to get out and it was semisuccessful let me show you and you can listen to irans communication minister he makes an apology and explains why the internet was shut off in iran have a look have a listen. You have to have the responsibility of maintaining peace and security of the country is on the shoulders of top security bodies at the beginning of the unrest the decision to limit the internet was taken to ensure peace for the society and the people and then it was deliberate internet offering. I should apologize on my behalf for all the problems you have been through during this period on my behalf and as a member of the government and the room. Was about how do you name it how does that happen. Well let me add up couric the number of mistakes in here offers about the intern that the media personnel of News Agencies there were as well as some Media Outlets they were not disconnected they had the them there 1st of all and the very fast the iranian ministration the president will honey tried hard to bring back a number of centers online like a number of Academic Centers in each cities as well as saw some of the i mean some sectors that vitally needed that matz like funding for. The flop so forth but only a minor 2nd point is. Some some people are trying hard in order to exonerate president rouhani that ministration can be protecting the blame on everyone and this stuff placement thats not the case since i have lots of documents and information about this as a journalist and i know that president rouhani as i said before everyone hes supporting or that we thought sion or reduction of stocks of these or pocket stops of these so much i love that you think i cant easily buy back on the topic because it was something i was really curious about and use a journalist would be at appreciate as well you know because i knew just how do you live to see one about this yet then you keep saying let me just do this and im really curious i didnt have a central im out how do you limit the internet in iran how to how do you deal yet. 1st of all every one was brought back i mean the net the more by as well as the ok i dont want to answer it but i just would like to get a not so if possible like how do you live on the internet in iran why not well this is something that you need to ask the officials not me they have if you already complicated that you dont know this aright because im not an artsy guy 1st of all let me explain a little about that was prince that will harm me actually who chose the timing who chose actually the manner of its implementation he had a number of other options to earn the same amount of money that he plans to earn through rationing petrol we could have done you know a lot of other things including for example according to data and claims that been presented to him are making petrol engine what are you confusing me because weve believed onto the internet and the internet limitation as happened over the last couple of days and and now its beginning to come back again because there are a lot of people that are trying to im sorry about that but there are many people who are trying to clean up this wrong move and i dont know why because there are facts on the ground that provide us with this very simple fact that. Ok im going to just put on pause for a moment. Can you move us on a course because we are an internet savvy show and we rely on the internet to power us this was the number one thing that people wanted us to know about iran so i just want to share a few tweets from people asking us to cover this as one of them who said at the time this is november 20th the internet blackout in iran has been going on for almost 100 hours coverage would put pressure on the government to turn it back on maxima says the of the shutdown has created an echo chamber inside iran nor to prevent the news of a by. And crackdown on protesters from getting out but i want to share with our audience this graphic because this will share this will show you exactly what it looked like so this from that block or update 65 hours after iran implemented a near total internet shutdown some of the last remaining networks are now being cut and connectivity to the outside world has fallen further to 4 percent you can see this here this is november 19th now we got a comment from someone who works at this organization on what its like now hes actually the actually the executive director at that blocks heres what he told the stream. Its been almost 2 weeks now. So if you would you know connect to any team in a position to be a very serious incident to take and so weve seen tropes of treating the folks that use most techniques which. You see filtering you see total shutdown and still. At some stage its a country which seems to have to come to mind but most of us can read you both so really its about understanding and its information that mission reaches the outside world you know it is highly dependent on technology the internet so there is pressure to bring it back but thats because against your thoughts he needs to suppress it. Cinnabar i know that you had some connectivity you were able to connect to some of your family and friends back in iran but what does this mean on a wider scale what did the shutdown mean for people in the 1st place well we heard from people say or see a feel like theyre suffocating it feels like their prison feels like their screen when nobody can hear them. It went on for quite a long time i mean we can talk about the economics behind the fuel price for it but thats not what the story is anymore it moved way beyond everyone within the administration is an agreement that that was the wrong will that there on time but then what happened during the these protests and some comparisons were made with austerity measures in other countries and protests but you have over 140 people dead as the international has put. Right now probably even very violent thousands of people have been arrested 7000 people one member of parliament has said that have been arrested and just from the very. Small number of images videos and photos that have come out we see very brutal crackdown in some instances Security Forces directly shooting up protestors or just violence happening in addition to all the valuables and that went on in the anger that was on the street but this number of deaths in this much crackdown in just one week is very good on president. To sign just looking at some of the reporting that you did for us on aljazeera and its quite difficult that that blackout time when we couldnt necessarily see the video all the videos and now popping up and then we have to work out which ones we can verify which ones we caught but in time what can you tell us happened in that time when we had limited access to what was happening in iraq. Well it was very difficult for us to even do our jobs in those circumstances not only did we have limited Internet Access we were restricted in our movements as well. Based say in those circumstances for security and we really choose not to venture too far away from the office because we dont know what the restrictions are at any given moment so we smilies stay within our offices and rely on state television and other official news channels to do their reporting and since we cant really verify any of the events the protests or the riots we try to find a balance in between what we hear from the official channels here and what we hear from those unofficial channels outside of are on the move people send their alleged firsthand accounts of what happens at these protests and riots so we try to present both sides and figure out sort of a happy medium if you will in the middle somewhere but really its very very difficult. Its hard to for anybody to verify these videos at any given moment anywhere in the world i think thats just that given the nature of social media there were images that were allegedly from you know 5 years ago from 10 years ago writing that took place in the house there were allegations that some of the social media footage was coming from iraq that protests there again its very difficult for us to verify that kind of information all we can do is really try and present a picture of what is happening where we are and that is the capital we spoke to people in the streets on a few occasions in during that 1st week just to get their opinion about what they thought how this price hike would affect their daily life and i think it was interesting that we heard from the president Hassan Rouhani on that sunday about the reason he gave for doing. This and he even acknowledged that it was a very difficult decision for his government but given the sanctions that this country finds itself under they didnt have a choice they had to do something because they were going to run out of money they had to find a way to increase the budgets the income for the government and to try to help nearly 60000000 iranians that are living below the poverty line i was there and mans notion of and by them is going to jump them must have a go ahead may i jump in although thats thats a wrong that bets are on the understanding of what prism who has so on he said rouhani has been claiming that they are not going to make any kind of revenue through this new scheme he has Just Announced that somewhere around 31. 1010. 00 mins would be the earning the estimates show actually every bit of every ryall of it would be given to the lower classes of the society so this plan is basically not related to the sanctions the erect lee but of course as sanctions make it our beer make life harder for the lower Class Society and that person has to harness come up with this scheme as he says and claims to help the poor thats the target of these cash handouts that they say that would be if the probably going to start it given out to the public. This is. Not. Something thats supposed to have any kind of a rip its for president rouhani thats what he claims. Act thank you thank you wait flank you for laying a wreath and i look like youre well right at the end of the show most of us i didnt do excuse me i just want to get one more comment from the guy which is after all of this time the the violence the protesting the internet being limited the other end of that what is the fallout of what is happening right now but it seems like the actual unrest has been. Was going to be wrap up with the crackdown now we see but the grievances are not going away this is something that we saw 2 years ago that youre probably going to continue if they can amik situation doesnt change if the political situation the corruption the mismanagement and also the economic sanctions from the outside none of this is changes these grievances are going to go away and people are probably just going to be more angry as you mention the grievances are going to go away we have a question on you tube from elizabeth who says who benefits from gas prices being tripled why wont the government reverse that decision especially since the people are protesting against it do you actually think the government will reverse that decision can they because this is something that other world body bodies have been asking for recommending that they put this into place. Even environmentalist and it still says subsidize the higher hike prices also still subsidize but i dont think its going to change the governors promise to take the money that they were going to save from the subsidies and cash part of it to the lower income part of the society has already started to millions of iranian families but i dont think its going to translate to the actual number that people are going to lose with the tripling of the price and then just very briefly your you have Family Offices in the wrong. And when you talk to them when you reach out to them how they feeling right. Well my friends and family mostly live in iran so theyve been away as dorset said from dart of the odd rest of the violence but its just the internet shutdown was something that affected everyone and not only us from the outside but even iranians inside iran who are not quite aware of whats happening within the country because of the shutdown which is also what now its like slowly coming out. Thank you dorsey thank you must if everybody appreciate you being on the strain today helping us understand the most recent protests as of the time we have thanks for watching see on. Big stories generate thousands of headlines with different angles from different perspectives separate the spin from the facts. With the listening post on aljazeera. Day one of a new era in Television News we badly need at this moment leadership and values this encampment that were in today it didnt exist 3 weeks ago now theres at least 20000 or hinder refugees who live here. I got to come in your all im hearing is Good Journalism president Hosni Mubarak has resides after all lies the attempts of cover ups Jamal Khashoggi his loved ones want some form of closure people are suffering and dying entire School Systems are collapsing we are going to beginning of a mass extinction he saw the syrian army flag poised to hide in the city just to play for the. Good to missiles a 100 meters away from the front line but its. Going to happen after bad. We were targeted that russia has been addressed by turkey listen what is the proposal of spain for a couple on you know we meet with makers and talk about the stories that matter. I know youre in tehran under the top stories on ours is there a curfew has been imposed in the iraqi city of now jeff after antigovernment protesters stormed the iranian consulate building meanwhile iraqi Security Forces have denied reports that 2 protest as were killed in baghdad after live ammunition was used to disperse demonstrators there. Joins us over the phone from baghdad mahmoud what further details do you have of what happened in. Moore and what would be told by i would. Choose to. Come