Iran Closes Out 2022 With Continuing Protests Against The Regime
Iran Closes Out 2022 With Continuing Protests Against The Regime
While the media has, by and large, moved on from Iran’s Mahsa Amini protests, the Iranian people have not. Despite executions and extra-judicial killings by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its affiliated Basij militias, the protests are ongoing.
Fresh protests in Zahedan, capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province, are but the latest example of open defiance the Iranian people have towards the diktats of the theocratic regime in Tehran.
Demonstrators shouted slogans denouncing Iran's supreme leader in the restive southeast of the country on Friday, while a human rights group said at least 100 detained protesters were facing possible death sentences.
There have been demonstrations across the country against the clerical leadership since mid-September after the death in detention of a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman arrested for wearing "inappropriate attire" under Iran's strict Islamic dress code for women.
These protests have not stopped since Mahsa Amini’s death last September, despite at least two executions and hundreds of killings by the IRGC and the Basij militias.
It appears one thing keeping the protests from metastasizing into a full-blown revolution has been the concentration of many of them among Iran’s minority ethnic and religious groups.
Some of the worst unrest in recent months has been in areas home to minority ethnic and religious groups with longstanding grievances against the state, such as in Sistan-Baluchistan and in Kurdish regions.
It is probably relevant in this regard to recall that Mahsa Amini herself was an Iranian Kurdish woman.
The inclusion of ethnic grievances in the growing list of reasons Iranians are dissatisfied with the mullahs in Tehran may be a point of division rather than unity among the protesters. If to some extent the protests represent the political unrest of various ethnic minorities, it becomes difficult for a single unifying leader to emerge to meld the protest movement into a revolutionary force capable of regime change.
Still, the protests have continued, and the protest movement has attracted more than a few high-profile Iranian individuals, including the noteworthy actress Taraneh Alidoosti, who was recently arrested for critizing the execution of protester Mohsen Shekari, the first person executed after a (sham) “trial” of dubious legality for protesting and becoming entangled in the violence of some of the protests.
Taraneh Alidoosti, who starred in the 2016 Oscar-winning film, “The Salesman,” had condemned the hanging of Mohsen Shekari, who was killed this month in the first known execution linked to the protests. Shekari was reportedly convicted of “waging war against God” for stabbing a member of the Basij paramilitary force at a protest in Tehran on September 23.
Shekari’s execution, meant to dissuade the protesters, served to galvanize them into persistance insteand.
Alidoosti has been challenging the regime directly of late, not only challenging the legitimacy of the “morality police” but calling out the authoritarian nature of the Islamic Republic.
Known as a feminist activist, Alidoosti last month published a picture of herself on Instagram without the Islamic hijab and holding a sign reading “Women, Life, Freedom” to show support for the protest movement.
After Shekari’s execution, she said in another post: “Your silence means supporting tyranny and tyrants,” adding that “every international organization who is watching this bloodshed and not taking action, is a disgrace to humanity.”
Alidoosti’s arrest has apparently backfired on the regime, as it has given local human rights group a fresh face and name on which to focus.
Local rights group, Committee to Counter Violence Against Women in Iranian Cinema, said on Twitter that it wasn’t clear which government department had taken Alidoosti into custody.
As an Iranian celebrity, Alidoosti is not someone the regime can easily “disappear” or hold completely incommunicado for too long. Her very public arrest and detention attracts too much attention for the mullahs in Tehran to just sweep it under the rug.
In addition to Taraneh Alidoosti, the protests have also garnered the support of retired soccer player Ali Daei, himself another prominent celebrity.
Ali Daei, who had his own passport briefly confiscated after returning to the country earlier this year, said his wife and daughter departed from the capital, Tehran, legally before the flight made an unannounced stop on Kish Island in the Persian Gulf, where they were questioned by authorities.
He said his daughter was released but the doors to the flight were closed by then. He said his family had planned to travel to Dubai and return next week.
It is telling that the Islamic regime is sufficiently eager to silence Daei and his family that it takes extraordinary step of preventing either Daei or his family from leaving the country, going beyond the reach of either the IRGC and Basij militias. Kept within Iran, Daei is much more easily silenced.
Nor is Daei an isolated case. While a number of Iranian celebreties have been vocal in their support for the protests, several have faced a variety of reprisals, including arrests.
Singers, actors, sports stars — the list goes on. Iranian celebrities have been startlingly public in their support for the massive anti-government protests shaking their country. And the ruling establishment is lashing back.
Celebrities have found themselves targeted for arrest, have had passports confiscated and faced other harassment.
Among the most notable cases is that of singer Shervin Hajipour, whose song “For …” has become an anthem for the protest movement, which erupted Sept. 17 over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody after she was arrested for not abiding by the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code.
Despite the regime’s best efforts, however, many celebrities are still able to support and encourage the protests, capitalizing on their popularity and high public profiles, which limits how far the regime can go to silence them.
At least seven public figures have been detained inside the country, most of whom were released on bail and could face charges, according to Iranian news outlets. Others were questioned and released.
But their popularity has also made it difficult to crack down too hard on them — in contrast to protest activists whom security forces have arrested in large numbers. Iran has a vibrant scene of singers and actors, as well as sports stars, who are closely followed by the public.
Holly Dagres, an Iranian-American non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council, said the attempts to intimidate public figures were no surprise.
“Celebrities — be it athletes, actors, singers or artists — have a large following inside Iran, particularly on social media, and their support gives life to these protests,” she said.
As Dagres points out, celebrity support lends a louder voice to the protest movement, ensuring it captures and holds the public’s attention.
“While using #MahsaAmini might seem like keyboard activism, Iranians see the world’s attention is on them and they appreciate it,” said Dagres. “The solidarity invigorates protesters to keep braving batons and bullets to make a change in their country. It gives them hope.”
This much appears certain: the Iranian people do indeed have hope they can make a change in their country. That the protests are continuing despite over 100 protesters facing possible death sentences admits of few other interpretations but that the protesters are committed to making changes.
At least 100 Iranians arrested in more than 100 days of nationwide protests face charges punishable by death, Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) said Tuesday.
If the objective of the death sentences was to cow the Iranian public into an end to the protests, the regime has well and truly failed. Death sentences, arrests, harassment, extra-judicial killings by the IRGC and Basij militias have all failed to persuade the Iranian people to end the protests. The people are losing their fear of the government.
"By issuing death sentences and executing some of them, they (the authorities) want to make people go home," said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.
"It has some effect," he told AFP, but "what we've observed in general is more anger against the authorities."
"Their strategy of spreading fear through executions has failed."
Without fear, the mullahs in Tehran have no real options to end the protests, which are ongoing and appear likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
As of yet, no political leader has emerged within the protest movement to galvanize the protests into a true campaign of regime change. Without such a leader, the protests will not by themselves end in regime change. Yet even without a leader, the protests are still generating enough passion and enthusiasm to keep the movement going—and so long as the movement continues it remains just a matter of time before a political leader does emerge. Once someone moves to the fore and takes charge of the protest movement, the mullahs in Tehran will be quickly and summarily swept aside.
Thus Iran closes out 2022, embroiled in protests that will continue to challenge the mullahs, yet still come up short of able to being make regime change a possibility. The end result for Iran will be a 2023 filled with more violence, more chaos, and less stability.
Anarchy is coming….