Iran’s nationwide uprising is now entering its fourth month. It shows no signs of abating despite the Iranian regime repeatedly accelerating its efforts to crack down on dissent, ever since the first demonstrations erupted after Mahsa Amini was arrested and fatally beaten by morality police in mid-September for allegedly violating the country’s Islamic dress code.
The regime’s latest escalation took place earlier this month when Mohsen Shekari became the first protester to be executed, followed shortly by Majidreza Rahnavard who was hanged from a crane in public as a warning to others. That warning was reinforced by state media, which published the names of around two dozen others for whom death sentences were either pending or already handed down.
The charges in question are vague in virtually every case. Shekari and Rahnavard
Among the pending executions the authorities have acknowledged, several stem from protesters simply blocking roadways. This is among the most prevalent acts of defiance in the ongoing uprising, and its newfound association with the death penalty is clearly intended to terrorize the public. Yet, far from shrinking away from this association, protesters appear to be confronting it head-on.
In recent days, photographs and video have gone viral on Iranian social media which show a woman carrying out a mock hanging of herself in Mashhad, the same city where Rahnavard was executed the prior Monday. The gender of that protester recalls attention to the female leadership that has been evident in this uprising since its beginning and has set it apart from a number of other uprisings that have broken out in recent years.
The role of women is made all the more remarkable by the fact that it includes teenage girls refusing to wear their hijabs in school, repelling government authorities who invaded campuses to plead for compliance, and destroying images of the clerical regime’s founder and its current supreme leader, the display of which is mandated in classrooms.
Naturally, university campuses have also been hotbeds of protest over the past three months, with every institution becoming involved at one time or another, and some being subjected to brutal government crackdowns and mass arrests. Similar crackdowns have taken place much more out in the open in the streets of major cities, while the breadth of student participation reflects the overall diversity of the uprising as a whole.
According to information gathered by the leading pro-democracy opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), residents of nearly 300 cities and towns have become active in the protest movement, spanning all 31 Iranian provinces. Every major ethnic and religious group has been unified behind slogans like “death to the dictator” which convey the public’s demand for the ouster of the entire ruling system. That unity also spans social classes and includes three distinct generations, including the 2010s generation, which corresponds to a time when illicit access to unfiltered internet and foreign media was becoming prevalent throughout the Islamic Republic.
Young Iranians have grown up with a strong awareness of what life can be like under a democratic system with ingrained civic freedoms.
This has naturally amplified the contempt for religious dictatorship which has been evident among the public since the immediate aftermath of the 1979 revolution. Over the course of four decades, the divide between the people and the ruling elite has become so wide that it can no longer be bridged. The current uprising is the clearest proof of that.
Nevertheless, the mullahs seem to be living in a different world and cannot come to grips with the fact that the overwhelming majority of Iranians want them overthrown. This is strange, since a prior uprising in January 2018 prompted no less an authority than Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to acknowledge that Iranian citizens were increasingly lining up behind the People’s Mojahedin in order to challenge the theocratic system.
Khamenei was correct about the MEK’s role in that uprising, and its role in the push for regime change has only strengthened since then. The current uprising’s slogans and the people’s organized defiance of violent repression reflect the growing influence of that organization’s “Resistance Units,” which began taking shape in 2014 and grew their membership by a factor of five between the summer of 2021 and this year.
Just as there is no reason to suppose that the uprising will recede, there is no reason to suppose that the organized Resistance movement will not continue to grow, both at home and abroad. Dozens of Western lawmakers and former senior officials, in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy, and I
That dictatorship is clearly on its way out. The Iranian people will see to it. But the international community can help to hasten that outcome by going beyond mere condemnation of the clerical regime and taking concrete steps to isolate and weaken it at the outset of a fourth month of domestic unrest.
They quit walking on the giant American Flag lets see then walk on a Antifa Flag instead make those Bolsheviks cringe
Getting rid of a murderous regime is important and necessary. With what kind of government will it be replaced? That is just as important and necessary.
The international community may or may not help with the destruction of the current regime. International “help” after the fall of the regime will be of no help at all.
The Iranian people need a unified vision for their people for their good. Without it, the next regime will be even worse.
Didn’t they just publicly execute people this past week? They don’t seem very worried. Maybe the U.S. Government should move there.
Better yet, move them here. Oh wait….they’re doing that!
Jug-eared Barry & his bitch, Sleazy Joe have something in common: they both turn their backs on a revolution that could bring down a dedicated enemy of the U.S.
“I don’t meddle.”
(Financing our enemies is something they prefer.)
Beden wants to give em nukes, trump had it right
That horrendously bloody and evil Islamic regime of Iran with its mass unjust executions of so many good people who are courageously standing up against an horrific tyranny of evil that denies human beings their natural God given rights that should have never been taken away from them in the first place.
What blatant gall of that judiciary-run news agency.to accuse those brave people who are only standing up for what is right of of “waging war on God”
Since that “news agency” is completerly religious ,in an Islamic sense of the word “religious, two facts should be taken in together.
First that Islamic tyranny of Iran has been and still is , as anyone can see a “murder factory,” so wicked truly is as it has proven as that state terror has proven itself to be. Second , the religion of Islam does acknowledge that Jesus is a prophet and a truth teacher, but no more than that. The point is that Jesus taught “”Every good tree bears good fruit , but a but a bad tree bears bad fruit… by their fruits you will recognize them.” Matthew 7:17,18.19. [N.I.V]
Second by the words of Jesus in view of the evil fruits of that murder machine that is called “The Islamic Republic of Iran ” the protesters aren’t “waging a war against God.” but opposing a cruel brutal deadly demonic regime of complete and total evil.
What a totally falsehood of a statement of that a judiciary-run news agency that the protester are “waging war on God.” For in reality in the light of both Proverbs and Ecclesiastes which are two Bible books that Islam instructs Muslims to respect , that “Islamic Republic of Iran’ has all the characteristics of an oppressive evil monstrosity and so is its President Ebrahim Rasis.
For that tyrant/dictator Rasis is well described in Proverbs 28:15. Which reads “Like a roaring lion or a charging bear is a wicked ruler over a helpless people.” [N.I.V.]
As for that honorific regime that oppresses the people and denied them their natural hum rights, the Bible in Proverbs reads “All the days of the oppressed are wretched.”
Further , in Ecclesiastes 4:1 it is written “I saw the tears of the oppressed – and they have no comforter ; power is on the side of the oppressor.”
In conclusion, that judiciary-run news agency of had falsely accused the Iranian people who are the protester of “waging war on God.”
What’s wrong with the devout catholic Joe Biden? How can he not recognize the significance of these events in Iran? Like border towns in Texas, the victimized citizens of Iran aren’t even on his radar.
Folks,
Your comments make sense from the perspective of outsiders, who may have never been to Iran’s soil. Should you have visited Iran, you may think, Oh my Gosh the regime is not as brutal as portrayed in social media. It provides/provided all facilities that a modern govt. can do in any developed country, and in my opinion, the people of Iran have more than enough of everything and are easy prey for destructing politics that sank Yemen, and Syria!
I am an Afghan, living in the capital, and for me, Iran is no less than the EU where life is easy, and everyone can earn, and live a standard living that is not possible in Afghanistan by the regime that is preselected by the Biden admin.
Let Iranian learn lessons from Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan, it will be a disaster to lose everything that a country has earned in 40 years, which can take a few months (Infrastructure, institutions, and livelihood).
The mullahs have nothing to do with any vestiges of sophistication and prosperity in Iran. Forty years ago they set about dismantling an ancient culture that was Persian, not Arab, and international, not insular. I think you have it wrong, buddy. Iran is being ground into dust, just like Afghanistan, for the dumbest possible returns.
Okay, so Iran isn’t as bad as Afghanistan. In fact by comparison it’s pretty nice. That doesn’t quite measure up to the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, you know. And that document is the template that any government should follow.
Can’t wait to see this regime go down. I remember the hostage situation. You can expect similar help in the form of Joe Biden. It will be limp wristed at best and you will be all on-your-own to make it happen.
Don’t count on the West to save you.
We regular citizens wish you God Speed.
One problem with revolutions, such as this current attempt at overthrowing the government of Iran, is that after the people have done all of the fighting and dying and things are in a state of flux, some opportunistic jackass pushes his way into power and installs an even worse government than the one overthrown, with himself as the head honcho. Think Lenin and the Ayatollah Khomeini. These brave young Iranians need to pay very close attention to what’s going on at the periphery of their revolt.
I’m sure Biden has Khamenei’s back.