If Revolutionary Guards commander Hossein Salami’s ultimatum to the Iranians protesting the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody was intended to intimidate them into standing down, it appears to have backfired spectacularly.

Far from the protests abating, video footage indicates the protesters are growing bolder, even taking to dislodging clerics’ turbans.

Visuals shared online show presumed protesters approaching clerics and dislodging their turbans before walking rapidly away. Residents of the Tehran district of Ekbatan were seen shouting slogans including "death to the dictator" while security forces used stun grenades against them. Images shared on social media showed murals of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his predecessor Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had been daubed with red paint in the holy city of Qom.

While knocking the turban off a cleric seems a relatively minor type of assault, the level of disdain such an action suggests indicates the mullahs are losing (and may have fully lost) the moral authority that is at the heart of their hold on power in Tehran.

With moral authority in question—and along with it governing credibility—Tehran’s plans to put some 1,000 of the protesters on public trial is likely to be an increasingly high-stakes manuever.

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency quoted judicial officials as saying that a thousand people who had a central role in the protests would be brought to trial in Tehran over their "subversive actions," including assaulting security guards, setting fire to public property and other accusations.

"Those who intend to confront and subvert the regime are dependent on foreigners and will be punished according to legal standards," said Iran’s judiciary chief, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, indicating that some protesters would be charged with collaborating with foreign governments. Tehran officials have repeated unsupported claims that Iran’s foreign enemies have fomented the unrest.

Without the legitimacy conferred by the clerics’ intrinsic moral authority, any verdict against the protesters will almost certainly be considered a sham verdict, making any imposition of sentence (which can include the death penalty) itself a sham. Tehran is taking a very substantial risk of escalating what are still mainly riots into an outright rebellion.

It is too soon to say the Islamic Republic is about to fall. It is too late to say the protesters have no chance of toppling the Islamic Republic.

Welcome to the Winter of Interesting Times….

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