Iran Doubles Down On Repression Without Success

The protests that have roiled Iran for the past few months not only show no signs of dying down, but fresh protests are ramping up across the country.

The Iranian government is responding with the only page it has in its playbook—violent repression by the Revolutionary Guards and other security forces—but without any apparent success.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have built up their presence in restive Kurdish regions, state media reported on Friday amid a crackdown on mass protests, as video showed dozens of people demonstrating in minority Baluch areas of the southwest.

The mass demonstrations that erupted after the Sept. 16 death in custody of 22-year old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini spread rapidly across the country but have been most intense in areas populated by the mainly Sunni Muslim ethnic minorities.

As the protests grow, so too do the presence of Iranian troops determined to suppress the protests through violence. In the past week alone, some 40 Iranian citizens are reported to have been killed. Additionally, there are reports of women being detained and subjected to significant abuse while in custody.

Molavi Abdolhamid also used his sermon to denounce the reported abuse of detainees.

"Things are said about the mistreatment of women in the media that are heavy and I can't bring myself to say," he said, apparently referring to reports of alleged rapes of detained women.

Whether the reports are true or not is, at this juncture, largely irrelevant. The protesters believe the reports to be true, making the corruption and degeneracy of the Revolutionary Guards as much an issue for the protests as the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini.

Violent crackdowns and repression are not working for the Iranian regime. Each crackdown, each outburst of violence by government security forces, appears to become a fresh cause for fresh protests. If this trend continues, there will come a time where the Revolutionary Guards will be beaten back in defeat by protesters—at which point the credibility of the ruling regime will begin to crumble and collapse.

Regime change is coming….