Protests In Iran Turning Into A Full Revolution
Maryam Sinaiee
Iran International
In the past two months Iranian protesters have made it quite clear they consider the regime unreformable and are pursuing its demise, without a clear leader.
Iran International
In the past two months Iranian protesters have made it quite clear they consider the regime unreformable and are pursuing its demise, without a clear leader.
Protesters have so far almost completely ignored President Ebrahim Raisi -- whose government has failed to deliver on most of his campaign promises including improvement of people’s livelihoods. They are not asking the president to improve the economy or build public housing. The slogans they chant in the streets, in universities, and from their windows and rooftops are addressed to someone else.
Often containing derogatory expressions and profanities, protesters chant against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei whom they hold responsible for all their grievances including Raisi’s presidency.
Protests have intensified and become more frequent in most major cities, spreading to smaller towns across the country, even to some remote and generally quiet areas. This is a sign that what is taking place resembles more a revolution than demand for reforms.
Anti-government protests in many small cities and towns, often considered traditional and conservative, where everyone knows everyone else, were very rare if not non-existent in the past but the recent protests seem to show that people in these places have overcome their fear of retribution from the establishment and probably consider the days of the Islamic Republic numbered.
Protesters in Tehran chant, "Our target is the whole regime"
Reports of extensive protests in Murmuri, a small town of less than 4,000 in Ilam Province and Evaz, a town of 14,000 in Fars Province, for instance, surprised many Iranians who had not even heard the names of these places before. Videos posted on social media November 15 showed a large crowd of men and women, who had flouted their hijab, chanting together “Mullah should be banished!” in Evaz. In Abadeh, a town of around 50,000 last week they chanted “This is the last message: Our target is [to topple] the whole system!”.
The Islamic Republic, and its leadership, have nearly wiped out all opposition political groups including those who never wanted anything more than reforms, hugely limited the media, and even marginalized many insiders such as former presidents -- reformist Mohammad Khatami, hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and moderate Hassan Rouhani – and former parliament speaker Ali Larijani, a conservative.
Nevertheless, for protesters, these former regime insiders, including Khatami who was once the most popular political figure in Iran, are not an alternative. The situation has led many to look outside Iran, among the diaspora, for figures who could at least lead the period of transition to a secular, democratic system.
Several names have been suggested as leaders or members of an interim government in the post-Islamic Republic era by both protesters in Iran and the huge diaspora that has supported the movement with regular weekly rallies in major world cities.
These include the former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, activists Masih Alinejad, Hamed Esmaeilion, Nazanin Bonyadi, and footballer Ali Karimi all of whom live abroad. There are also other possible candidates, such as Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, but no one currently residing in Iran.
Thousands of people inside and outside the country, have used social media to call on these figures, whose political views are diverse, to form a coalition to lead the revolution. The hashtag “FormCoalition” created to reflect this wish is quickly gaining popularity.
“There’s no ideology behind this revolution. I think we will go to the end this time... The difference [with previous protests] is that there is great hope this time, the hope that the end of the Islamic Republic has come,” said Canada-based Esmaeilion at the Halifax International Security Forum Saturday which several others including Alinejad and Bonyadi also attended.
Tweet unavailable
The mourning ceremonies for two protesters who were killed in recent days in Mahabad, a small Kurdish-majority city in West Azarbaijan province, turned into fierce protests throughout the day and by night the whole city was in control of the protesters.
Incessant gunshots were heard in videos from Mahabad as the Internet and power were shut down in parts of the city while regime forces kept shooting and breaking windows of people's homes.
According to footage published on social media, the streets of Mahabad are packed with military vehicles, and the situation in the city is so tense that it seems martial law has been declared. In one of the incidents, a large gathering was held by the city’s authorities in which people were told the governor would deliver a speech, but security forces opened fire at the crowd. The number of casualties from the city remains unknown.
Many people on social media have called for support for the people of Mahabad. Iranian football legend Ali Karimi, a key supporter of the popular uprising, called on Iranians to immediately help Mahabad amid fears of a massacre. "Shame on you for deploying tanks to crack down on people who are emty-handed," Karimi tweeted.
The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), issued a statement on Sunday condemning the indiscriminate crackdown on residents of Kurdish cities and towns. PDKI, which is banned in Iran as an anti-government group, is based in the Iraqi Kurdistan.
“Saturday evening, November 19, the Iranian regime appears to have imposed martial laws in the Kurdish city of Mahabad. Iran's terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has reportedly entered Mahabad with heavy military weapons and equipment... The lives of many people are in danger.” read the statement.
The party also called on the international community and human rights organizations to not remain silent over “the massacre of the Kurdish people,” noting that the silence of the international community will further embolden the regime to target innocent people and demonstrators.
German member of European Parliament Hannah Neumann also tweeted in support of the residents of the city. “Gun shots. Civilians screaming. Electricity turned off. Limited internet access. The regime kills in darkness. We need to put the spotlight on what happens,” she said.
People in other cities of the province, including Boukan (Bukan), Khoy, Piranshahr, and Oshnavieh, also poured into streets to express support for the people of Mahabad.
Iranians have been holding daily demonstrations for more than two months but the protests were mainly in big cities. In recent days small towns have also become scenes of unrest as mourning ceremonies for fellow residents happen to morph into protest rallies.
In addition to pockets of protests in large cities, Marivan and Divandarreh in Kodestan province, Malekan in East Azarbaijan province, Mahallat and Saveh in Markazi, Golpayegan in Esfahan, Paveh in Kermanshah, and many more are the scenes of protests on Sunday.
As people are protesting across the country, large numbers of expatriate Iranians in diaspora communities held rallies in support of the protests in over 100 cities on Saturday.
In a speech on Saturday, Khamenei accused the enemies of trying to slow down Iran's progress but stopped short of explaining what progress he was referring to.
Under his authoritarian rule Iran’s economy has been ruined in the past decade, with tens of millions falling into poverty. Except for some military hardware, the Islamic Republic has little to show as progress, with protesters across the country demanding regime change.
Individuals such as former parliament speaker Gholamali Haddad-Adel, a close relative of Khamenei, followed suit blaming foreign countries for the protests that have been going on since mid-September after a young woman was murdered in custody of ‘morality police’ in Tehran.
Haddad-Adel claimed during a meeting with hardliner politicians in Tehran on Saturday, [Nov. 18,] that he had evidence to prove "47 countries have an Iran desk in their government and spend budget" to monitor the Islamic Republic. Haddad Adel, however, did not mention that the Iranian government has several centers to monitor events in other countries. Those include an American Studies Center at the University of Tehran, and several Strategic Studies Centers at the Iranian Foreign Ministry and other offices that work on Iran's neighbors and countries as far asway as in South America.
Iran's neighbors and others have every reason to watch a country that threatens them. The Islamic Republic also threatens navigation and trade in the strategic Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman and only two weeks ago, regional countries and the United States were alerted about possible Iranian military action against Saudi Arabia and warned Tehran against it.
Add to that the West's long-standing concern about Tehran's support for terror groups in the region and beyond. During the past two weeks, Iran has threatened to destabilize Europe, and threatened journalists in the United Kingdom. The authorities and security and anti-terrorism experts in London have taken Tehran's threats seriously.
Haddad-Adel also claimed that the United States is destabilizing Iran because it is the only country in the world that does not surrender to domination. But Iran has signed long-term agreements with China that some former Iranian officials including former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have described as “colonial.”
Nonetheless, there are other Iranian politicians whose remarks about foreign intervention in Iran are even more outlandish. According to Jamaran News, a proreform website in Tehran, Javad Nikbin, an Iranian lawmaker from Kashmar, a small town in Khorasan Province, claimed on November 17 that it was the United States that set fire to Tehran's Evin Prison in mid-October.
Nikbin quoted Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian as having told him about the October 16 Fire at Evin Prison in Tehran: "The night when Evin Prison was set on fire, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called me as soon as I arrived at my home and was taking off my jacket. The secretary said that the US has four prisoners in Evin who were supposed to be swapped with Iran's prisoners in the United States and he was worried that something could happen to them. I told him nothing had happened." A comment under the Jamaran News tweet said jokingly: "Blinken could have waited for our foreign minister to take off his jacket. It was certainly difficult for him answering the phone with his hand still in the sleeve."
Nikbin further claimed that "The United States used its men in Tehran to set fire to the prison," and claimed that "The US secretary of state knew about the fire 40 minutes before we found out about it." Nonetheless, the most interesting part of the report is that the Iranian foreign ministry denied any such conversation between the foreign minister and Nikbin, and of course a phone conversation between the Iranian and the US chief diplomats.
But even that is not the end of the story. On November 19, some Iranian newspapers published Nikbin's rather funny account of the conversation as news. The Islamic Republic needs controversial stories to distract attentions from the ongoing violent crackdown on protesters.
Iran’s football squad is nicknamed Team Melli – literally translated as national team – but their lack of support for the ongoing protests and their attempts to ingratiate themselves with the clerical regime has led to a new nickname for them: “Team Mullah”.
On Friday, two of the players -- Karim Ansarifard and Morteza Pouraliganji -- refused to answer questions on solidarity with women, a day after another team member, Alireza Jahanbakhsh suggested that such questions were meant to distract the team before World Cup matches.
Jahanbakhsh accused British media of distracting the team ahead of Monday's Group B opener against England and Ansarifard jumped to his defense at a news conference, repeatedly stressing team unity. "It's my professional duty to play football and your professional duty to ask questions, but we all need to do things appropriately in our profession. This is why we always defend each other and tell the truth.”
Ansarifard added that "It's an absolute honor regardless of who comes to the stadiums, whether it's our fathers, our brothers, our men or women. We play for all men and women of our country. When I say people of our country, there's no exception. That includes all men and all women. We have respect for all fans around the world. Iran has some of the best fans... We've got passionate fans who are very loyal. We're famous for it and we're very proud of them."
Ansarifard, who spent a year at British club Nottingham Forest, also talked about the team’s match against England and expressed hope that Iran would qualify for the knockout stages for the first time. "I'm relatively familiar with English football... England has one of the best leagues and some of the world's best players. I've always tried to pass on my interpretations of English football to my teammates."
When a similar question about the protests in Iran was posed to Pouraliganji, the coordinator stepped in and requested questions on the World Cup only.
Last week, national team coach Carlos Queiroz replied to a reporter, who asked him about the situation in Iran, with the same strategy, trying to divert the conversation to issues related to UK.
Their unsympathetic tone came on the backdrop of several Iranian sportsmen and women using international competitions to show their support for the protests that have rocked the country since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police in mid-September.
Numerous Iranian athletes have shown support for the protests. The Iranian football, beach football, waterpolo, basketball, and sitting volleyball teams refused to sing along with the anthem, which is customary in almost all international competitions. Authorities have made serious threats against athletes and other celebrities to stop them from public displays of solidarity with protesters but to no avail.
During the past few days, Iranian legendary striker Ali Daei and outspoken star Ali Karimi, who has been charged in absentia for supporting the protests, said they rejected invitations by Qatar to watch the World Cup matches.
Iran's first ever meeting with England is overshadowed by the events in the country, no matter how hard Iranian authorities try to keep politics out of the pitch, especially against England’s players who are known for taking the knee in protest to racial injustice. The British squad – nicknamed the “Three Lions” -- will probably kneel before their match against Team Melli in support of the protests in Iran. The Lions are likely going to be applauded by the Iranian fans better than the applause awaiting the Islamic Republic’s team.