""Knife-wielding thugs", "weeds that must be uprooted, cut down and thrown away", these were some of the words Ali Khamenei used on 10 June 1992."
"One might think he was referring to organised criminal gangs."
"He was not. He was describing the people of Mashhad, who had taken to the streets after security forces killed a high-school student in the city's Kuyi-Tollab neighbourhood."
On 10 June 1992 authorities described Mashhad residents with phrases such as "knife-wielding thugs" and "weeds that must be uprooted, cut down and thrown away." The labels followed street protests in Mashhad triggered by the killing of a high-school student in the Kuyi-Tollab neighbourhood by security forces. The rhetoric framed protesters as criminal elements and as something to be eliminated, casting civic unrest as a threat requiring eradication. Such language served to criminalize local citizens and to justify harsh responses by security services. The episode links hostile state rhetoric with violent suppression of urban protest.
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