Iran central bank governor blames protests for currency’s fall
The governor of Iran’s central bank on Saturday attributed some of the recent anti-government turmoil for the Iranian currency’s decline to record lows, while officials jailed a well-known actress who had expressed support for the demonstrators.
Groups of oil workers protested on Saturday in response to the unrest, which presents one of the biggest challenges to theocratic rule in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, according to reports on social media. They were calling for higher wages.
The death in custody on September 16 of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was detained for wearing “inappropriate clothes” in violation of Iran’s strict Islamic dress code for women, was the catalyst for the larger turmoil that is currently roiling the country.
Authorities detained Taraneh Alidoosti on Saturday after she expressed support for the demonstrations and posted a picture of herself without a head scarf holding a sign that read “Woman, life, freedom,” which is the main rallying cry of protesters. Taraneh is the star of “The Salesman,” which won an Academy Award for best foreign language film in 2016.
Alidoosti was detained a few hours ago on a judicial authority’s order, according to a statement quoted by the official news agency IRNA. Alidoosti did not provide any documentation to support some of her claims.
According to the announcement, certain celebrities were jailed after being called for making “unsupported comments regarding recent events” and “posting aggressive material in favor of earlier street protests.” Nothing more was provided.
Alidoosti was given a five-month suspended sentence in 2020 after criticizing the morality police who enforce the hijab or Islamic dress code on Twitter.
Alidoosti was the most recent of scores of musicians, writers, and attorneys who have been held over the past three months for speaking out against a brutal crackdown on protestors by the security forces, some of whom have since been released on bond.
Separately, Ali Salehabadi, the governor of the Central Bank, recognized that “the events of the past two months” and U.S. sanctions had contributed to a historic decline in the value of the Iranian rial, but he proposed that dollars may be pumped into the market to support the ailing rial.
According to foreign currency website Bonbast.com, the dollar went for as high as 395,600 rials on the black market, up from 386,800 on Friday.
The dollar rate was 382,300 on the website of the economic newspaper Donya-e-Eqtesad, up 1.2% on Friday.
Since the national protests began three months ago, the value of the rial has decreased by around 20%. Just before the United States withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions on the country in May 2018, the currency was trading at roughly 65,000 to the dollar.
A video posted on Twitter by the 400,000-follower account 1500tasvir claimed to show a metro stop in Tehran on Saturday with people yelling, “Political prisoners must be released!”
495 protestors, including 68 kids, had been slain as of Friday, according to the activist HRANA news agency. Additionally, 62 members of the security forces have died. It stated that there had probably been 18,450 arrests.
Credit: Reuters
