As Iranian Protesters Dig In, Officials Warn of Harsher Response
January 2, 2018 by admin
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On Monday, a crackdown by the government and security services was building, and riot police officers with water cannons were out in full force in Tehran, the capital.
The death toll from the clashes was up to at least 12, and in the central province of Esfahan, one police officer was reported killed and three wounded in a gunfight. “An agitator exploited the current situation, and using a hunting rifle, opened fire on police forces,” state television reported.
In all, about 200 people have so far been arrested in Tehran alone since the protests began Thursday, one security official told Iran’s ISNA news agency. There were arrests in provincial towns as well.
Mr. Rouhani has urged demonstrators to avoid violence but defended their right to protest. He did so again on Monday on Twitter.
“People want to talk about economic problems, corruption and lack of transparency in the function of some of the organs and want the atmosphere to be more open,” he wrote. “The requests and demands of the people should be taken note of.”
The protests are not just the largest in Iran since 2009. They also suggest a rejiggering of some traditional divisions.
People who live in rural provinces long viewed as supporters of the authorities are now leading most of the demonstrations. And while people in Tehran have also taken to the street, the capital is not the epicenter of the protests, as it was during the so-called Green Movement in 2009. In Tehran, many middle-class Iranians share the discontent but also fear insecurity.
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Iranian Presidency, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The frustrations that led to the protests also appear different from the sentiments in 2009.
That year, a wave of demonstrations broke out after the contested election of a hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and then turned into a wider protest movement against Iran’s leaders.
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This time, it is the failure of President Rouhani, a moderate, to deliver greater political changes and economic opportunity, despite the lifting of some of the sanctions against Iran as part of the nuclear deal. Young people are especially angry. The average age of those arrested is under 25, one official said.
The poor economy especially affects Iran’s young people — more than 50 percent of the population is under 30, according to official statistics. Officially, youth unemployment is near 20 percent, but experts say it is really closer to 40 percent.
When the protests started last Thursday in the city of Mashhad, demonstrators chanted slogans about the weak economy.
But as the protests spread, they have taken on a far more political cast. Increasingly, they are being directed at Iran’s entire political establishment. Some demonstrators have even called for the death of Mr. Rouhani and of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The strength and volatility of the protests have caught Iranian politicians by surprise. Some have denounced them as “riots,” while others have acknowledged that the widespread frustrations at their root can no longer be ignored.
On Monday in Tehran, the atmosphere was tense and security forces were out in large numbers. Protest occurred sporadically, with people shouting slogans and leaving. The day before, protesters in provincial towns tried to storm police stations, military and installations, and also attacked a seminary, state television reported, showing footage of burned cars and fires.
Protests have taken place in at least half a dozen cities, including Karaj, Qazvin, Qaemshahr, Dorud and Tuyserkan, it said.
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Access to the Telegram messaging app and the Instagram photo and video sharing app continued to be blocked by the authorities, cutting of the main communication tool for protesters. Special software used to circumvent the government filters could still be downloaded easily. And on Monday, as on other days, there were calls for protests online and on foreign-based Persian-language satellite channels.
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Some residents said they were determined to continue the demonstrations, and several hundred gathered at central squares.
While the numbers of protesters in Tehran was small on Monday, the discontent was widespread. Many people on the streets complained about high prices, corruption and lack of change.
“We need to improve our economy, and the people’s voices must be heard,” said a 28-year-old woman, a piano teacher in Tehran, who asked not to be named out of fear of repercussions. “I’ll go out tonight again.”
Many youths in larger cities enthusiastically voted for Mr. Rouhani when he was re-elected in May, raising expectations among many in the reform camp. But since then even many of the president’s supporters say he has failed to fulfill his promises for improving an economy sorely hobbled by years of sanctions, corruption and mismanagement.
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Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Even the lifting of economic sanctions under Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with large foreign powers including the United States has not unleashed the growth Mr. Rouhani had hoped for, as key sectors of the economy remain under the thumb of obscure powers, including religious foundations and the country’s Revolutionary Guards. There is mismanagement and widespread corruption in all levels of the state apparatus.
Beyond that, the United States has continued other sanctions, making it still harder for Mr. Rouhani to make gains.
The economic frustrations do not appear to have been offset by the greater social freedoms that the president has granted young people. Under Mr. Rouhani, strict Islamic rules have been somewhat relaxed. Concerts have been allowed, and the morals police are largely off the streets. Illegal parties are usually no longer raided, although there have been exceptions.
But there is a wide gap between Iran’s changing and modernizing society and Iranian leaders who insist on keeping up their anti-Western policies and the state interpretation of Islam.
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Mr. Rouhani’s decision not to include any women in his cabinet and his failure to put the relaxation of the rules into law have made many bitter.
The president has complained that power centers dominated by hard-liners have blocked many of his plans and decisions. Now, some protesters are venting their frustrations at the political and clerical establishment.
In Takestan, west of Tehran, several people were arrested after attacking a seminary, the Iranian news media reported. In Karaj, also close to Tehran, a gas station was burned, a witness reported.
Earlier on Monday, the semiofficial ILNA news agency quoted Hedayatollah Khademi, a representative for the town of Izeh, in Iran’s oil-rich but poor Khuzestan region, as saying two people had died there on Sunday night. He said the cause of death was not immediately known.
State television announced that 10 people had died on Sunday, but did not provide a location. “Some armed protesters tried to take over some police stations and military bases but faced serious resistance from security forces,” a presenter said.
“Illegal protests continued last night in several cities with less protesters participating, but they were as violent and turbulent, making residents of these cities concerned about their and their businesses’ security,” the state television report said.
The videos showed burned cars, fires and wreckage on the pavement. The report also showed a fire-brigade vehicle that was said to have been seized by protesters in Dorud, Lorestan Province.
By Monday evening, riot police officers belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps waited in an alley near Tehran’s city theater for a potential protest to start, as men and women anxiously walked the sidewalks. Others, families and couples, cruised around the area in cars. Many were young people.
“They want to start, but there is too many police,” one taxi driver said, looking at hundreds of people, and even more security forces. Plainclothes officers on motorcycles zipped by. Buses stood ready to take potential troublemakers into custody.
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Long Branch shooting: Rare for minors to kill family members, expert says
January 2, 2018 by admin
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CLOSELONG BRANCH SHOOTING LEAVES FAMILY DEAD
Softball teammate says ‘He was more than a friend’ | 0:57
Joe Rios was still in shock that his friend and family members were killed by that man’s 16-year-old son in Long Branch, NJ.
THOMAS P. COSTELLO
CLOSELONG BRANCH SHOOTING LEAVES FAMILY DEAD
Long Branch shooting: APP Reporter live on the scene | 2:24
Here’s what we know so far about the quadruple homicide in Long Branch. Video cut off at the end due to technical difficulties.
CLOSELONG BRANCH SHOOTING LEAVES FAMILY DEAD
Friend recalls how Long Branch murder victim did everything for his family | 2:26
Ronnie Pacheco describes how his long-time friend Steven Kologi would do anything for his family, including working extra jobs and attending sports activities. Kologi, his wife and a friend were killed by his son on New Year’s Eve in Long Branch, NJ
THOMAS P. COSTELLO
CLOSELONG BRANCH SHOOTING LEAVES FAMILY DEAD
Neighbor’s father describes meeting murdered Long Branch family | 2:01
Carmen Guadious, West Long Branch, recalls meeting members of the family that where murdered along Wall Street in Long Branch, NJ. His son lives next door to the home where 3 family members and a friend were allegedly killed by a 16-year-old boy.
THOMAS P. COSTELLO
CLOSELONG BRANCH SHOOTING LEAVES FAMILY DEAD
Neighbor describes hearing mix of gunshots and fireworks | 1:37
James Roskowinski describes how he heard a mix of fireworks and gunshots near where four people were killed in Long Branch, NJ, by a 16-year-old with a semiautomatic weapon.
THOMAS P. COSTELLO
CLOSELONG BRANCH SHOOTING LEAVES FAMILY DEAD
Three family members, friend, killed by 16-year-old in Long Branch, NJ | 1:03
The Monmouth County Prosecutor reports that three family members and a friend were killed by a 16-year-old with a semiautomatic weapon on Wall Street in Long Branch, NJ, on New Year’s Eve.
THOMAS P. COSTELLO
Residents woke up on New Year’s Day to news that a 16-year-old boy had been arrested and accused by authorities of murdering his mother, father, sister and a family friend in Long Branch.
Long Branch shooting: 16-year-old in custody after killing family, friend
What’s unusual about that, according to University of South Florida Professor Kathleen Heide, who has written two books on family killings, is that the alleged offender is a juvenile.
“Based on the research that’s been done in the field, you’re looking, at most, one case a year” when a juvenile kills multiple family members, said Heide, who spent decades studying cases in which people kill their family members.
About five times a year an adult kills multiple family members, she said. More common is when a person kills a parent, which happens roughly five times a week in this country, according to Heide and a 2013 Psychology Today report. That might seem frequent, but such cases account for only 1 percent of U.S. murders.
Parricide – murdering a parent – is on the rise, accounting for 15 percent of family homicides in 1980 but 37 percent in 2008, according to the study.
“Children killing their parents is the fastest growing type of family homicide,” Mario Garrett, a professor of gerontology at San Diego State University, wrote for Psychology Today.
Heide said in just more than 20 percent of parricides it is a juvenile who kills a parent, noting it is far more typical for an adult to kill a parent.
Offenders are typically white males in their mid-20s, she said. And when a juvenile is the offender, she said, it’s typical that a firearm was used.
“An adult who gets angry and has homicidal thoughts can put the brakes on and go ‘this is wrong,’” she said. “A juvenile, because of brain development, it’s much harder for the juvenile to stop, think, deliberate and weigh consequences.
“That underscores the importance, if parents have firearms in the home, to secure those weapons. Even though the risk is very, very low, juveniles, again because of brain development and impulsivity, are much more likely than adults to react and not put the brakes on.”
More: Long Branch shooting: mass slaying no bizarre anomaly
Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni said the 16-year-old charged in Sunday’s killings used a Century Arms rifle that was registered to a family member.
In her work, Heide has evaluated 50 people, mostly juveniles and young adults, who commit such crimes and studied thousands of cases to help answer a question that comes up after each unfathomable killing, no matter where and when it happens: Why?
Heide said in most cases an offender fits into one of four categories:
- severely abused: an individual who kills a parent because of physical, sexual, verbal or other abuse
- severely mentally ill: a person with a documented history of mental illness
- dangerously anti-social: a person who kills for selfish reasons, such as an inheritance or freedom, such as to date someone they wish
- enraged: a person who has anger toward their parents and erupts into lethal rage, sometimes after an argument or extended conflict, and can be fueled by alcohol or drugs
Heide stressed that mental health evaluations and research are necessary before coming to conclusions about why a person committed an act.
And she noted that there’s even less known by scholars about the motives of juveniles who kill, because it is so rare.
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Family killers are most commonly fathers, and are sometimes called “family annihilators” – but what, exactly, are those?
According to David Wilson, director at the Centre of Applied Criminology at Birmingham City (UK) University, they can be hard to predict.
So-called family annihilators generally do not have criminal records or exposure to mental health services, according to a paper Wilson co-authored.
“The clearest unifying factor is that this is overwhelmingly a male crime,” Wilson said in an interview with phys.org. “We also found that the rate at which this type of crime is being committed has increased, with the first decade of the 21st century claiming over half of all cases.”
A forensic psychiatrist told the Asbury Park Press that family killers sometimes believe that killing their families and then themselves is the only way to keep their families together.
“A normal healthy independent person knows that they can forge on in life even after the loss of a relationship,” Dr. Park Dietz told the Press in an interview after an August murder-suicide in Lacey. “But there are a great many people who are so dependent on another they can’t see a future without them.”
It’s not yet clear what led to the shooting at a home in Long Branch, which unfolded just minutes before midnight Sunday. That will be part of an ongoing investigation, Heide said.
Authorities charged 16-year-old Scott Kologi with four counts of murder and a weapons offense.
The victims were identified as the Kologi’s father, Steven Kologi, 44; mother Linda Kologi, 42; sister Brittany Kologi, 18; and family acquaintance, Mary Schultz, 70.
Stacey Barchenger: sbarchenger@gannettnj.com; @sbarchenger