In recent weeks, and with the intensification of security pressures on the opposition, the innovative phenomenon of writing slogans on monetary bills in Iran has exploded. This method of popular resistance, which was promoted by the green wave supporters since one month after the election and continues to this day, prompted government officials to react again yesterday.
Yesterday, speaking to the ILNA news agency, governor of the central bank of Iran said that writing slogans on bills is a “crime,” adding, “People who engage in writing slogans on bills are essentially wasting the nation’s wealth and national resources.” In his short interview with IRNA, Mahmoud Bahmani attempted to play down the problem, but said in threatening remarks, “Any person who has left a mark on a bill, even drawing a line on it, has committed a crime.”
The governor of Iran’s central bank dodged ILNA’s question as to whether the central bank has plans for replacing bills that exhibit slogans, only saying, “No decision has yet been made and we must enact policies about that.”
The governor of Iran’s central bank referred to writing slogans on bills as a crime while in recent weeks, due to the public’s mass endorsement of the resistance technique, the issue has turned into a significant problem for the coup agents in their confrontation with the green movement.
Previously, figures close to the administration had called on the relevant organizations to remove the bills carrying slogans related to the green movement from circulation. Two weeks ago, for example, Morteza Talaei, member of the Tehran city council’s cultural committee, reacted to the issue as “every bill, a medium” was becoming one of the main slogans of the green movement. The Tehran city council member referred to slogans written by people on the bills as “certain anti-revolutionary messages” and called on the central bank to issue a statement asking the public to refrain from accepting bills that carried messages and slogans related to the green movement until it was able to remove them from circulation.
Experts in financial and banking matters believe the recent suggestions by supporters of the coup administration with respect to removing bills from circulation or deeming slogan-writing on bill to be criminal to be completely impractical, only demonstrating the tenth administration’s confusion on how to respond to the green movement’s innovative resistance techniques.
These suggestions are announced at a time when supporters of Ahmadinejad are attempting to portray the administration as having succeeded in putting down the popular resistance that erupted in response to the presidential election¾an attempt that has so far been in vein given the increasing protests and the use of innovative techniques by protesters.
