Information Minister: Enemy Media’s Voice Becomes Lasting in the Hearts of Our Youth
The Information Minister of Raisi’s government compared “enemy media” to a drum whose sound “becomes lasting in the hearts and souls of our youth.” Khamenei said a day earlier that the “enemies’ hope” lies in popular protests, but their calculation is wrong.
The Information Minister of Ibrahim Raisi’s government, speaking among a number of commanders and military and security officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said that today the “enemy” has mobilized with all its capabilities against the Islamic Republic.
According to Tasnim News Agency, Hojjatoleslam Ismail Khatib said on Sunday, June 5 (Khordad 15), that nonetheless they realized that there is “a power within the system” ready to confront any threat.
A member of the thirteenth government cabinet added: “The enemy is currently focused on three issues; first, they have calculated based on our protests and social conditions in the discussion of demands, protests, gatherings, guilds, etc., and they are trying through networking and organizing to expand them.”
The issue of expanding political and civil protests and sectional demands in Iran, whose scope continues to broaden, was also one of the main topics of the speech given yesterday by the leader of the Islamic Republic at the ceremony marking the thirty-second anniversary of the death of Ruhollah Khomeini.
Denial of Domestic Origins of Discontent and Protests
Ali Khamenei at this ceremony claimed that today “the enemies’ most important hope for striking the country is popular protests, but this calculation is wrong and they cannot put the Iranian nation against the Islamic system.”
In recent weeks and months, whether in protests regarding the living conditions and runaway inflation or in protest movements against incompetence and corruption leading to incidents such as the collapse of the Metropol building in Abadan, the anger of protesters has very quickly manifested in slogans against the entire Islamic Republic system and Khamenei himself.
Khamenei and other government officials attribute the growing protests of the people against current conditions to “foreign enemies,” especially the United States, and describe Persian-language media outlets outside the country and cyberspace as factors fueling discontent.
Khamenei’s Claims and the Information Minister’s Admission
The leader of the Islamic Republic in his speech on Saturday (Khordad 14) claimed that Western countries hope to put people against the Islamic system “through psychological operations and internet activity and mercenary activities,” but this calculation is wrong and today the people’s inclination toward religion has “certainly” increased.
The Information Minister on Sunday admitted: “Unfortunately, the enemy media drum is not only grating and painful to hear, but its sound is becoming lasting in the hearts and souls of our youth.”
Evidence suggests that what is becoming lasting “in the hearts and souls of our youth” is distrust of the Islamic Republic and alienation from the entire government structure, which itself is the cause of disorder but does not take responsibility.
Ismail Khatib, regarding two other issues that he said the enemy has focused on, said: “Second, terrorist operations, whose standard-bearer is the Zionist regime, and the third one through cyberspace is trying to distort minds [regarding] Islamic Iran.”
In recent months, operations carried out against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and military facilities, and mostly attributed to Israel, have increased significantly; however, the Information Minister claims that Iran has reached sustainable security due to “information superiority” in the region.
Source: DW
