The Iranian public's rage at the state-led crackdown on fuel price hike protests in November 2019 has only accumulated over the past 18 months, as authorities refuse to come clean or release any official report into the killings and abuses.

A series of inflammatory comments and decisions by Iranian officials over the past week seems to have further intensified the fury. The topic reentered the public sphere after Iran's security chief, Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani, found himself in one of the most embarrassing situations in his political and military career, in which he had to deny a comment he had allegedly made in the heat of the unrest and during a private conversation with Mahmoud Sadeghi, an outspoken Reformist figure and lawmaker at the time.

"Sir, these are ordinary people. [The security forces] are killing these people in the streets. What are you doing? What if people persist and refuse to leave the streets? Are you then going to kill all the people?" Those are questions that Sadeghi claims had asked the rear admiral. "No need to be self-reserved, we will shoot them," Shamkhani allegedly answered.

Shamkhani is the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), an influential body of senior officials handpicked by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In a statement, the SNSC dismissed the quote as "baseless" and promised to file a lawsuit against the former lawmaker.