What is the proposal of spain for a couple on you know we meet with newsmakers and the stories that matter. I have for me ok. Youre in the stream today protests in iran what happened was the countrys internet was shut 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 you have for our guests send us a tweet or join the live chat streaming right now on youtube. This is just the ramsi and the Communications Director of human rights in iran and here in the green. A sharp increase in the price of petrol same to run errands to the streets this month in antigovernment demonstrations that turned deadly and destructive protesters burned banks government buildings and clash 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 rest 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 most of them political analyst and professor of media studies also into her on aljazeera correspondent ari had 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. Who had a scare that would have to thats that matthew says that it was a deep extensive and very dangerous conspiracy that cost them the u. S. 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 gets 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 the plans come into effect and people take out to the streets to express their fuel jaeger and their concerns it will witness the sense of 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 of the 4555 weeks and the same happened in a lot of prison will honey rot. Gas rationing and gas hide 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 to the whole nation but what matters here is that there is 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 expert 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 a look at their set that is the relevant 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 up there is the a hottie that came by surprise but from a certain point and as usual youre not in the states and in number of other you know Opposition Forces that are with mantid actually their involvement through the opposition media and you know a broad. In england at least in london there have been 2 t. V. Channels that opposition members who believe in the regime change even some of them through war and force and the its not so much graduate can i just get you to post for a moment because you pull up so many different issues and i feel that we can. 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 end of the us like the any right it is a sign of the form 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 plan when they stop their security was at the stake 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 all talking about at the same time i want other people to to weigh in here dollar said so when most of us started was that the legitimate grievances and perhaps this was not the best economic move at the time money could have been done better you were reporting on these pilot tests how did you count to rise them for us as an audience that our desire for instance. Well i think most that was right initially everybody was shocked imagine waking up one morning on a weekend on 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 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 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. Actually there are based on what source of us 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 or what you are hearing a lot of 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 dorsal and we can you wake up and its tripled. But then it quickly turned political the slogans become political whereas 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 the state it just adds to that 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 that this has been a continuation of the end of 2017800 that were series a series of protests in 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 they knew 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. To the heavy 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 they were as well as some Media Outlets they were not disconnected they had the 1st of all and the very fast the iranian ministration the president will ani 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 said there is that why do we need it then thats fun for 5. To 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 projecting 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 we thought sion or reduction of stocks of these or pockets ups of these so much i learned i just didnt think i going to usually buy back on the topic because it was something i was really curious about and use the journals from the out appreciate as you know the economy just how do you listen listen to mine about this yet then you keep saying let me just do this and im really curious and you have a 2nd show im outa the op how do you limit the internet in iran how to how do you do that yet. 1st of all every one was brought back i mean then that more by as well as the ok i dont want to answer it but i just would like to get not so if possible i how do you know 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 at. The start because im not an artsy guy 1st of all let me explain a little about that was prince the role harney 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 if you leave go on to the internet and the internet limitation has 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 the army up this wrong move and i dont know why because there are facts on the ground provide us with this very simple for our. Prism ok so 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 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 maximus 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 an 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. So. You know you. Can actually be a very serious incident. And so you see. That. You see filtering so its a shock to. The country which seems to come to mind but. If you dont really understand it. Even if you may she. Reaches the outside world you know it is hard to defend. Against so there is pressure. Against you for its needs 1st. 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 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 move at their own 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. International house put. Right now probably. 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 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 valid bills and that went on and 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 see the video all of 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 of 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 or on the more people sent 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 rioting that took place in the house there were allegations that some of the social media footage was coming from iraq the 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 on here 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 they and their notion of and by them is going to jump them must have a go ahead may i jump in all know thats thats so wrong that bets are on the understanding of what prism how the so on is that 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 it 3 all of it would be given to the lower classes of the society so this plan is basically not related to the sanctions directly but of course as sanctions make it all our beer make life harder for the lower Class Society and the president has to harness come up with a scheme as he says and claims help the poor thats the target of these cash and also that they say that would be if the probably going to have started giving out to the public. This is not. Something that supposed to have been a guard up for president rouhani thats what he claimed and i thank you thank you so late flank you for laying a nasty than i will that live right here on the 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 gulf 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. Well it seems like the actual address has been wrapped up was going to be wrapped up with the crackdown now we see but the grievances are not going away this is something that we saw 2 years ago. And its 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 so 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 bodies have been asking for recommending that they put this into place. Even environmentalist and its still 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 their prices and then just very briefly you know you have. The wrong. When you talk to them when you reach out to them how they feeling like. Well my friends and family mostly live and. Theyve been away as dorset from hard of the agressor 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 were 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 really appreciate you being on the strain today helping us understand the most recent protests at the time we have thanks for watching c. N. N. As flames engulfed the world watched in horror but behind the smoke screen a murky world is devouring the forest and its inhabitants killing the person always standing up and differently before. The message to everybody in the community faultlines meets those on the front line of defending their environment and asks who is stoking the flames in both scenarios brazil and burning on aljazeera. Embryos to communist leaders. Age old philosophies and the rule of order remain central to the worlds oldest living civilization in a 2 part series the big picture charts the rise of a 21st century superpower and examines the challenges it now faces from the outside and from within the china complex coming soon on. 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