Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines on Saturday said the Iranian government does not see the ongoing protests in Iran as an “imminent threat to the regime.”
In an interview with NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., Haines said Iranian leaders may not see the protests as a threat now but could face more unrest because of high inflation and economic uncertainty.
“We’re not seeing the regime perceive this as an imminent threat to their stability and effect,” she said. “On the other hand … they are really having challenges and even nationwide seeing sporadic close-downs of businesses, [which] from our perspective, that’s one of those things that will lead to a greater risk of unrest and instability over time.”
Protests erupted in Iran in mid-September after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died while in police custody. She was arrested for improperly wearing a hijab.
The sweeping protest movement has continued unabated, although Iran has cracked down violently, leading to the death of 450 protesters and the arrest of 18,000 people, according to human rights group estimates.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has accused the U.S. of fueling the protests in the country.
The protests gained renewed attention at the World Cup in Qatar, when the Iranian soccer team refused to sing the country’s national anthem to stand in solidarity with protesters.
Haines on Saturday said the government is “continuing to crack down” violently on the protesters but is struggling with some inside resistance on how to respond effectively.
“We see some kind of controversies even within them about exactly how to respond within the government” to the unrest, Haines said.
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Another official says any Chinese greenlight to Western vaccines seems ‘fairly far-fetched’
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Chinese leader Xi Jinping is unwilling to accept Western vaccines despite the challenges China is facing with COVID-19, and while recent protests there are not a threat to Communist Party rule, they could affect his personal standing, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said on Saturday. Although China's daily COVID cases are near all-time highs, some cities are taking steps to loosen testing and quarantine rules after Xi's zero-COVID policy triggered a sharp economic slowdown and public unrest. Haines, speaking at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in California, said that despite the social and economic impact of the virus, Xi "is unwilling to take a better vaccine from the West, and is instead relying on a vaccine in China that's just not nearly as effective against Omicron."
Iran's move comes amid protests since the death of a woman forcibly taken into custody after being accused of violating the Islamic dress code.
DUBAI (Reuters) -Protesters in Iran called on Sunday for a three-day strike this week, stepping up pressure on authorities after the public prosecutor said the morality police whose detention of a young woman triggered months of protests had been shut down. There was no confirmation of the closure from the Interior Ministry which is in charge of the morality police, and Iranian state media said Public Prosecutor Mohammad Jafar Montazeri was not responsible for overseeing the force. Top Iranian officials have repeatedly said Tehran would not change the Islamic Republic's mandatory hijab policy, which requires women to dress modestly and wear headscarves, despite 11 weeks of protests against strict Islamic regulations.
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