Despite clarification of the circumstances behind Amini’s death, rioters appeared in certain cities’ streets and vandalized public property due to media incitement against Iran.
Security personnels were attacked during the tumultuous protests, and ambulances and police cars were also vandalized.
Economic experts predict that such acts of vandalism will have lasting detrimental effects on the Iranian economy in addition to their immediate repercussions.
According to University Professor and Economic Expert Gholamreza Khankeshi-Pour, the impact of the riots can be considered from two perspectives: one is the financial impacts, which are summed up as a series of damages to public property and funds, all types of ambulances, fire brigade, police, municipal machinery, buildings commercial, office buildings, banks, hospitals, and mosques; the other is the loss of lives, mental and psychological distress, and disruption of people’s comfort and routine.
Khankeshi-Pour mentioned the restrictions on access to some social media platforms like Instagram in the wake of the riots and claimed that these restrictions will place a heavy burden on online businesses that use these apps.
The most serious impact of unrest is on macroeconomics, he stressed, because the security of investment, especially foreign investment, which has increased dramatically in recent years, can be adversely affected by the turmoil.
Ghasem Nodeh-Farahani, the head of the Iran Chamber of Guilds, agrees that the current upheaval has hurt a number of enterprises and poses a problem for the nation’s economy.
According to Nodeh-Farahani, “Guilds in various regions of the country suffered from this circumstance because some businesses started their operations in the evening hours and continued until midnight and the disturbances compelled them to close up their shops.”
The official emphasized that peace and security are necessary conditions for economic growth, saying that the riots will have an influence on the entire country’s economic cycle in addition to the enterprises that are directly harmed by the conditions on the streets.
Because guilds should function as a collective and not individually, he said, “all sectors in the economic cycle are dependent on one other, and creating a disruption in one of the sectors will involve other sectors as well.”
Abdolmotahar Mohammadkhani, the Tehran Municipality’s spokesman, told Tasnim news agency that during the recent riots, 25 light, and heavy vehicles, as well as one Toyota vehicle with full equipment, all belonging to the Tehran fire department and the Tehran Municipality’s safety services, were destroyed.
The official calculated that the damages imposed on the public properties in Tehran would be around 165 billion rials, or more than $550,000.
The rioters are required to make up for the harm they did to public property, according to the authorities.
The rioters and those who incited them in the recent upheaval must make amends for the harm they brought to the Iranian people, according to Ali Bahadori-Jahromi, the official spokesman for Iran, who made the statement in late September.
On the eve of the cabinet meeting, Bahadori-Jahromi stated, “We have seen coordinated acts of sabotage in recent days, the ground for which was established by the opposition media.”
Even though the short-term harm brought on by the unrest may be quickly made up for, the long-term effects on the economy are actually more important.
We can only hope that the government will devise some solutions to deal with the problem and ease the restrictions on access to some platforms where many firms are now active.
