DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Facing hard-line forces on the streets, Iran’s anti-government demonstrators have taken their protests to a new venue: writing “Death to the Dictator” and other opposition slogans on bank notes, while officials scramble to yank the bills from circulation.
There’s no way to calculate how much Iranian currency has been scribbled on or stamped with dissident messages in recent months in response to efforts to halt public demonstrations or choke off the Internet and cellphone messaging.
But it’s been enough to bring public denunciations from financial overseers as senior as the central bank governor.
Another top regulator said banks will no longer accept defaced bills in an attempt to discourage merchants and others from taking the protest-tagged money.
“What did they die for?” asked one message on a bill, referring to the estimated dozens of demonstrators killed in the wake of vote-rigging allegations in last summer’s re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Last month, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran, Mahmoud Bamani, said writing slogans on money would be considered a crime.
