Iran Protests: This Time Is Different
Iranians have revolted against the Islamic Republic regime many times and have been suppressed each time, but the past is not necessarily a guide to the present.
Iranians have revolted against the Islamic Republic regime many times and have been suppressed each time, but the past is not necessarily a guide to the present.
Regime sympathizers in the West, who want the Islamic Republic to remain in power do not actually verbalize their desire. Instead, they declare that the regime’s survival is not in doubt. They base their rationale for spreading seeds of despair on how forcefully previous unrests were crushed. As such, they suggest we must resign to the notion that the past is irrefutably prologue.
But this revolt is different. Let us review some of the realities in a “then and now” schematic.
Dealing with the Repressive Machinery
The world is dealing with a new generation of Iranians. Iranian generations Y and Z are different from the nondescript and timid generations of the past. They are especially distinct from that of the "reform" period. This was my generation. When we came to the streets, we would listen to the words of self-appointed reformist leaders and protest in silence. When the riot police beat us with batons, we would chant, "Police force! Support us! Support!" Instead, a girl of generation Z sets her headscarf ablaze in front of the security forces and the boy saves his friend from the clutches of the regime’s plainclothes mercenaries with a Bruce Lee-style high kick.
The very basic right of any human being - the right to protect one’s own life - is now a rule vastly acknowledged by the Iranian people. If you punch, you will get kicked. If you lift a baton, a flowerpot will descend upon your head from the balcony. This retaliatory policy has stunned the regime’s repressive forces and instilled fear in the hearts of mercenaries, rendering their authority and the Islamic Republic’s historically brutish force a bit ineffective.
The sanctification of struggle has been replaced by the will for triumph. Anger has substituted grief. Crying over the death of comrades has given way to trying to achieve the goal for which they died. Students at universities now bravely confront the regime’s henchmen and shout, “Death to the Dictator!” When their comrades at Sharif (Aryamehr) University of Technology in Tehran are brutalized by the Islamic Republic’s mercenaries, students from universities around the country protest. Even high school students have joined the movement.
International Attention
During the November 2019 protests, the regime shut down the internet and embarked on a mission to slaughter the people. In the West, this massacre was hardly covered in the media, as if it was not happening. No Western celebrity uttered a word. The Iranian people’s need for the internet became a paragraph in the annual reports of Western think tanks. The hacker group Anonymous was not aware of the atrocity unfolding in Iran. The tweets asking Elon Musk to help get internet for Iran were probably never read by him. President Donald Trump and his foreign policy team expressed verbal support for the people. The silence from the rest of the politicians was deafening. To this day, US Democrats know little to nothing about what was dubbed as Iran’s “Bloody November.” They conveniently ignored the tragedy because, Heaven forbids, they would find themselves on the same side with Trump.
Now, Anonymous has unleashed its fury on the Islamic Republic. Elon Musk agreed to activate Starlink for Iran. Almost immediately, the US Government issued the license for him to proceed. All this is not perfect and has limitations, but it is a ray of hope for the Iranian people that the world is hearing them. Indeed, they have found their own methods to circumvent the regime’s internet shutdown. In the diaspora, Iranians from around the world have taken to social media and to the streets to express solidarity with their compatriots. In Toronto alone on October 1, 2022, an estimated 50,000 people rallied in protest to the Islamic Republic. Hundreds of thousands more joined these rallies in the US, Europe, Asia, and Oceania.
Western celebrities on social media condemned the brutal murder of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini by regime’s mercenaries for “inadequate hijab.” Her name became a codeword for women-inspired protests. Artists, athletes, and other celebrities began competing in praising the bravery of Iranian women and men. Politicians in the West, one-by-one began making official statements in support of the uprising.
US Democrats who were at best lukewarm towards previous protests and flagrant human rights violations in Iran, have announced solidarity with the Iranian people, especially women. Even the progressive Democrats who are influenced by the Islamic Republic’s lobby found themselves in the awkward position of having to voice a semblance of support. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), who is an advocate of appeasing the oppressive regime in Iran, acknowledges in an interview with CNN that “this time is different.”
Most astonishing of all was Biden’s National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, admitting that the US, during Barack Obama’s presidency, made a miscalculation by not supporting the Iranian people during the 2009 uprising.
Unity
During the 2009 uprising, the streets of Tehran and a few other Iranian metropolitans saw an enormous turnout of people. In November 2019, there were protests everywhere except for Tehran, apart from some suburbs and peripheral townships. This time the heart of Tehran is ablaze. Affluent neighborhoods in Tehran are packed. Simultaneously, there are large demonstrations in other urban and rural areas on Iran. This has created a conundrum in transposition for the regime’s mercenaries and repressive forces. The middle class, which was silent in November 2019 and the winter of 2020, finally united with the rest of society. It is indeed a national uprising.
Artificial ethnic divisions, likely created by the regime itself or by fringe ultranationalist “opposition” groups outside Iran, were blurred. A nation rose in reaction to the slaying of a young Kurdish Iranian woman. In Tehran, people shouted "Kordestan, Kordestan, the eye and light of Iran.” Women of Tabriz shouted, "Azarbaijan is awake, it stands with Kordestan.” Everywhere else in Iran they chanted, "I will kill he who murdered my sister.” After the Islamic Revolutionary Guards massacred more than 40 Sunni compatriots in Sistan and Baluchistan province, people in the Shiite religious center Mashhad shouted, “Mashhad, Zahedan, my life is for Iran.”
Iranian opposition groups of various political persuasions, set their differences aside by and large. Those who did not join this movement with goodwill were rejected and repudiated.
The Islamic Republic’s unofficial lobby groups in the US and Canada that historically dominated the headlines with their “analyses” were also marginalized. Regime-affiliated journalists who largely wrote for English-language publications and spread disinformation in favor of the regime were ignored. Most interestingly, regime’s unofficial lobby in the US was explicitly told that they were not welcome in the October 1 rallies. In those rallies, placards were held by Iranians condemning these organizations and individuals.
Woman, Life, Freedom
The slogan of the Kurds who were fighting the Islamic State in Syria has become the slogan of the Iranians battling the Islamic State in Iran. “Woman, life, freedom” represents the paragon of liberty and social justice. Women, who were oppressed for 43 years following the Islamic Revolution, have become a symbol of human rights. Longing for a normal life and vitality, which the Iranian people were robbed of is celebrated. And freedom, it needs no elucidation.
You can call this movement an uprising, a rebellion, or a revolution. Whatever it is, it has a gratifying scent of victory. This time is different, in all respects.
The opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily the views of Iran International.
Some also used his account to argue that the killings of young women like Mahsa Amini, who was fatally injured in “morality police” custody, and Nika Shakarami, a 16-year-old girl who was taken during the protests in Tehran and found dead ten days later with evidence of torture, are entirely possible at the hands of brutal security forces.
Javad Moguei, a hardliner filmmaker whose career could be summarized as trumpeting the Islamic Republic's ideology, wrote about what happened to him in a long Instagram post which has disappeared from his page, however, screenshots of his post, as well as a copy of it posted on Telegram on the account of the reformist Saham News, are still available on social media.
Moguei starts his story with his visit to the Enghelab (Revolution) Square where he went with his friends to buy some books. "At the Revolution Square the number of Basij militia, special riot troops, the police and the IRGC's plainclothes officers were several times more than the people who were walking on the sidewalks in the busy roundabout," Mogui remembered.
While shopping for books, his friend Ali told him how the Basij was beating and sexually insulting young girls in the streets during the past 10 days. His other friend Mehdi told him that this is the Basij's usual practice during every round of unrest.
"At the Quds intersection [about half a mile from the square] I head a girl screaming. A police officer threw him in an open gutter in the street and several Basij members started to beat the girl who weighed less than 60 Kilograms. I rushed to the scene and shouted at them: Don't beat her! She will die," Moguei remembered, adding, "They told me it was none of my business. And then they shot me in the hand and chest with shotgun [birdshots], and I fell on the ground."
Moguei added: "A motorcyclist offered to take me out of the scene and warned that the forces may take me away. I told a Basij militiaman once again not to beat the girl as she might die. Then several militia members attacked me calling me mother f**ker. I kicked him and then all of them attacked me. There were about 10 of them. Then they threw me into a minibus. Several other detainees were also on board. Then an older man came in and asked my name and I said my name."
The man must have known Moguei and his brother who is a top Basij commander in Karaj near Tehran. "He blindfolded me and told me that I should have not intervened. When they inspected my phone and saw the picture of a well-known IRGC martyr on my screen saver, they stopped what they were doing. They took me off the minibus and took me on board another van. After a while I realized that the van was circling around the area. I saw from beneath the blindfold that they were going through the same streets again and again. I had a headache as they had hit my head on the wall or kicked it," Mogui remembered.
"Then the van stopped at the Revolution Square and a man with a goatee came on board. He asked me about what had happened. I told him about the Basij who insulted my mother. He didn't quite believe me. I asked him whether he was from the IRGC or the Police? He did not answer." The man with the goatee probably recognized Moguei as a well-known hardliner who frequented Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's headquarters. "He offered me water and even dinner. I refused to accept. I sat there blindfolded for several minutes while he apologized and handed back my phone."
A close relative of Khamenei's Chief of Staff Mohammadi Golpayegani called. Moguei's friends must have contacted Khamenei's office to tell them about his arrest. "I told him that I was still dizzy. The paramedics had arrived and the man with the goatee loudly prayed that nothing more serious had happened to me. He came to me and said my mother was like his mother and suggested that I file a complaint against the Basij the next day. It was only after the examination by paramedics that I found out I was shot 12 times. What if they hit me in the eye?"
"My friends joined me now and I insisted to go back to where I was shot to see the Basij. We went there and there were only the police. The Basij had already left. But I will go there every day hoping that I will see the attackers once again."
Moguei was lucky not to be shot in the head or in the eye. He was also lucky because the Basij did not kidnap him and took him with them to drop him at a remote place like Nika. He was luckier as his friends were well connected and could call the only place with real influence on thugs. Mogui just tasted a few drops of his favorite regime's own syrup. The rest of the population are extremely unlucky, left in the hands of those who are not accountable for what they do.
Speaking to Iran International, a source who is familiar with the prisoners’ circumstances said they have been strip searched, repeatedly interrogated, threatened by interrogators with losing their once daily two-minute phone calls to their families.
According to the source who did not want to be named for their safety, detainees have been kept indoors in unsanitary conditions throughout this time. The lights are never turned off in the shed even at night, and there are only three toilets and showers.
“Women have developed various infections as there are no facilities for washing and drying clothes and underwear … A few women found head lice in their hair,” the source said.
On Wednesday, a religious and public holiday, protesters took to the streets again in several cities including Tehran, Esfahan, and the religious city of Qom in the evening. The video from Isfahan shows people chanting “Women, Life, Liberty” while in another video a group of protesters are seen chanting “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid. We stand together!” in Qom.
Authorities have not released any information on the number of detainees, those injured and killed in the protests that began nearly three weeks ago following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini who was arrested for not wearing her hijab “properly”.
A top Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) commander, Brigadier General Ali Fadavi, said Tuesday that detainees are around 15 years old on average while Tehran’s Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor Ali Salehi announced that 400 of those detained in the protests who “were repentant” have been released.
Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based rights organization, said Tuesday that at least 154 protesters, including nine children, have been killed by security forces during the protests.
Very little is known about most of the victims as families are pressured to remain silent if they want the bodies of their loved ones to be handed over to them.
Documentary filmmaker Javad Moguei, a hardliner and Khamenei devotee, has published a very grim account of the great violence against protesters by security forces’, IRGC’s Basij militia, and their plainclothes helpers on Instagram in the past three days.
Moguei said a police officer shot 14 plastic bullets all over his chest and arms in a matter of seconds only because he had objected to the beating of a young girl protesting on the street with no hijab.
“Don’t beat her, she will die, I cried. One of them told me to mind my own business and then my body went on fire. The officer was shooting at my chest and arms nonstop,” an apparently disillusioned Moguei who was subsequently thrown into a van and taken away wrote in one of his posts. He said he was released and officials apologized to him when he was recognized.