The Iranian Revolution During the September 2010 Unrest: “Our enemy is doomed because of national integrity” President Mahsa Amini
Even as anti-government protests continued to spread in Iran, the president appealed for unity and tried to allay any anger against the rulers.
Raisi acknowledged that the Islamic Republic had weaknesses and limitations, but said that the unrest that began after the death of a young woman in the country’s morality police was a plot by the country’s enemies.
He told a parliament that the country’s determination is aimed at cooperation to reduce people’s problems. Our enemy is doomed because of unity and national integrity.
The US and Israel engineered the riots with help of traitorous Iranians overseas, stated the supreme leader in his address.
Tehran has been convulsing with demonstrations since the death in mid-September of Mahsa (also known as Zhina) Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman who died after being detained by the country’s morality police for how she was dressed.
Iran’s security forces have sought to disperse demonstrations with tear gas, metal pellets, and in some cases live fire, rights groups say. At least 41 people were killed in violent confrontations with the police, but Human Rights groups say that number is much higher.
The demonstrations spread quickly to university campuses, long considered sanctuaries during times of turmoil. Videos on social media showed students expressing solidarity with peers who had been arrested and calling for the end of the Islamic Republic. Many universities moved classes online this week due to the unrest.
On Sunday, protesters were barricaded inside a parking lot and the university was surrounded by security forces who fired tear gas at them. The student union stated that police made hundreds of arrests and many were later released.
Social media video showed cars filling the streets shortly after news spread Sunday of the crackdown on students, horns blaring in solidarity with protesters as the showdown unfolded at the university, known for educating Iran’s best and brightest students.
Protests also appeared to grip gender-segregated high schools across Iran on Monday, where groups of young girls waved their state-mandated hijabs and chanted “Woman! Life! Freedom!” in the city of Karaj west of the capital and in the Kurdish city of Sanandaj, according to widely shared footage.
The Biden administration has said it condemns the brutality and repression against the citizens of Iran and that it will look for ways to impose more sanctions against the Iranian government if the violence continues.
A woman dressed in black raises a framed portrait of her son, Siavash Mahmoudi, in the air as she paces the sidewalk in Iran’s capital, Tehran. “I am not scared of anyone. They told me to be silent. The woman seen in a video is very emotional and says she won’t be.
As Iranians mourn loved ones slain in protests, many say the regime tried to silence them.
As the masses made their way to Azadi Square, nationalist and religious songs were played, the crowds chanted reverent slogans for Supreme Leader Khamenei and the Revolution. They displayed banners with the same mottos, “death to America” and “death to Israel.”
Anti-regime demonstrations have also penetrated the Islamic Republic’s power bases, including the Shia holy cities of Mashhad and Qom. Ethnic minorities — notably Kurds in the country’s north and northwest, and Baloch people in the southeast — have also staged protests, enduring what appear to be some of the most brutal crackdowns, with scores reportedly killed.
Women and girls are removing their mandatory headscarves at secondary schools around the country because they are flashpoints.
Iranian Protests of the Reformation and the Restoration of the Faith: A Commentary on the History of the Revolution and the Recent Ineptness of the Islamic Republic
Terrorists think that our generation is the previous generation. We are not. A protester from Tehran’s prestigious Sharif University of Technology told CNN that he wanted to assure them that they would be alright.
“If the dust settles and we stop protesting, they are going to kill even more of us. They are going to turn us to North Korea, because they will be detaining more people, the protester said. “This is not the end. I promise you that.
Last week, Amnesty International said it had obtained a leaked document which appeared to instruct commanders of armed forces in all provinces to “mercilessly confront” protesters, deploying riot police as well as some members of the military’s elite Revolutionary guards, the Basij paramilitary force and plainclothes security agents.
CNN has not seen the leaked documents obtained by Amnesty International and cannot verify the reporting. CNN has reached out to Amnesty International on how it received the leaked documents but hasn’t received a reply.
In addition, Amnesty International said it had seen evidence of sexual assault against female protesters – CNN has not been able to verify this. Iranian security forces dragged women by their hair in a social media video.
Analysts say that the threat to the regime posed by these protests is one of the biggest Challenges the Islamic Republic has faced in years.
According to Trita Parsi, the executive vice-president at the Quincy Institute in Washington, DC, the young generation has lost faith in the Quran and the Islamic Republic could be reformed.
The current protests may eventually be quashed or simply lose momentum, but analysts say Iran can expect another cycle of nationwide demonstrations in months to come. Similar protests against the government in 2009, and in the most recent demonstrations in March, followed.
Vaez stated that it was difficult to sustain and maintain a movement that would bring the regime to its knees.
Still, the protesters appear bolder than ever, sensing a window of opportunity that could quickly close as Iran appears to near development of a nuclear weapon, which would both entrench the regime’s grip on power and deepen its isolation.
He said a regime with a nuclear weapon and killing and disfiguring its own people is the worst thing a regime could do.
Mahsa Amini, 22, and the death of her father in Iran: The case of “Baraye,” an anthem for the Iranian revolution
They wouldn’t see them alive that last time. One family searched frantically for their daughter for 10 days, posting desperate appeals for information on social media; the other found out the fate of their daughter within hours of her disappearance.
The result was the same. The security forces killed the teenagers, according to the families and human rights groups. One girl’s skull was smashed, and the other girl’s head was cracked by baton blows. Their bodies were handed back to their families bruised and disfigured. They were 16 at the time.
WASHINGTON — Chanting crowds marched in the streets of Berlin, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles on Saturday in a show of international support for demonstrators facing a violent government crackdown in Iran, sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of that country’s morality police.
On the U.S. National Mall, thousands of women and men of all ages — wearing green, white and red, the colors of the Iran flag — shouted in rhythm. “Be scared. Be scared. We are one in this,” demonstrators yelled, before marching to the White House. “Say her name!” “Muhsa!”
The demonstrations, put together by grassroots organizers from around the United States, drew Iranians from across the Washington D.C. area, with some traveling down from Toronto to join the crowd.
A lawyer who was born in the US after her parents fled the Iranian revolution was wearing a T-shirt with a slogan in English and Farsi. In Iran “women are like a second-class citizen and they are sick of it,” Scharm said.
Between chants, protesters in D.C. broke into song, singing traditional Persian music about life and freedom — all written after the revolution in 1979 brought religious fundamentalists to power in Iran. “Baraye,” which means “freedom” in Arabic, has become an unofficial anthem for the Iran protests. After posting the song to his Instagram, the artist of that song was arrested. It accrued more than 40 million views.
Taraneh Alidoosti, well-known actress in Iran, was released from prison this week but still faces charges stemming from comments she made about a protester who had been executed.
Why the Green Movement is so far gone? A stalemate left after four months of protests in Iran, and why the “Green Movement” hasn’t
Observers have noted that the size and number of demonstrations are no longer large. Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, founder and CEO of the London-based Bourse & Bazaar Foundation think tank, posted a chart to Twitter that appears to show such declines. Compared with the massive protests that erupted in 2009 and became known as the “Green Movement,” Batmanghelidj asks why the current “protest movement motivated by such righteous anger has not generated large and durable protests — so far.”
Javad, a 55-year-old protester from north-central Iran, tells NPR he has no doubt the protests will continue, and will get larger. He asked that his family name be kept out of the news, in order to avoid being retaliated on by the authorities.
“Without this cooperation and coming up with a plan to put pressure on the Islamic Republic and facilitate the transition from this government to a new government, it’ll be harder for new groups of people to join the movement,” he says. People will find it very difficult to trust the opposition if they don’t cooperate.
Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group thinks that it’s remarkable that the regime has driven young people onto the streets, primarily through its own incompetence and corruption. He sees something similar to a historic parallel.
“My sense is that the Islamic Republic is where the Soviet Union was in the early, not late, 1980s,” he says. “It’s a system that is bankrupt and broken, at a dead end and cannot address its problems with the same cast of characters who created it, which is what happened in the early 1980s.”
Nearly four months into these demonstrations, the protesters are still a minority voice, and Vaez believes that leaves the situation, for now, in a stalemate.
The 1979 Iranian Revolution in Iran: Fireworks and the death of a man killed by a regime that killed a dictator, as condemned by Iranians
When asked if he had any plans for Revolution day, a carpet dealer in the city said “sleep”. He was speaking on the condition that he not be identified because of the risks of publicly criticizing the regime. The people discussing the government don’t want to be photographed.
In 1979, several factions of Iranian society, including secularists, Islamists and leftists, were united against the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The Shah came to power after a 1953 coup d’etat — instigated by the United States and Britain — which overthrew the previous, democratically elected leadership. Supporters of the 1979 revolution hoped to bring a democratic system back to Iran. The Shah was known as a ruthless autocratic leader and used torture and executions to stifle dissent. The Islamic Republic is accused of taking power after the revolution of similar tactics.
Still, many Iranians who express ambivalence about the regime still revere the revolution itself. A 63-year-old university professor joined the celebrations in Tehran. He said that he wasn’t there for Mr. Khamenei. “I came to help the revolution”, he said.
“The celebration is losing its color,” said a 53-year-old woman walking with her father in the city of Isfahan, the day before the anniversary. Her father was against the Shah, and when she was in grade school, he would explain the problems of Iran to her.
“People who don’t want to wear the hijab, or want to wear it in their own way should be allowed to do as they wish,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t support the Islamic Republic or that we want it to change.”
The college student who spoke withNPR said that the campus protests she participated in after the death of Amini were peaceful. Just walking and telling our rights.”
Many Iranians have different views about the regime. She didn’t plan to celebrate the anniversary of the Revolution, and doesn’t support Iran’s leaders. But she also said she respects them.
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2023/02/12/1156322493/fireworks-and-death-to-the-dictator-iranians-assess-the-revolution-44-years-on
What do NPR’s slogans tell us about Iran’s revolution, its people and their enemies? A Palestinian woman’s perspective on the “We love you” protest
A few people who spotted NPR journalists doing interviews took pains to explain that the slogans were against America’s politics, not its people. “We love you,” one man said.
A woman in her 50s implored in English: “Please, please, please be honest. Be honest. When asked what it was she wanted NPR to know, she said: “The reality. There is the reality. “This is the reality,” she said, pointing to the square.
“We want to protect our country from all the invasions all over the world,” said Fatemah, a 41-year-old woman. She wore a black chador, an open cloak, which was worn by conservative women in Iran. “And the most important country that has invaded our country is your country. Anything bad happening for our country is from the United States unfortunately.”
The square piped over loud speakers as the hardline president of Iran gave a speech. A group encourages people to keep protesting after it was briefly hacked during its online broadcast.
He gestured toward the main slogan of the protest movement, “Neither woman, nor life, nor freedom”, and said that people who have been deceived by the enemy now know that the main issue of their enemy is not freedom or woman.
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2023/02/12/1156322493/fireworks-and-death-to-the-dictator-iranians-assess-the-revolution-44-years-on
The Iranian Revolution and the Crisis on the Economy: “It’s Never Too Late!” a Commentary of Seyed, A 33-Year-Old Iranian
One thing almost all Iranians are united on, no matter their political leanings, is that the government needs to do more to fix the country’s sputtering economy. Inflation is high, and the Iranian rial recently tanked even further against the dollar after the protests. Combined with U.S. sanctions, Iranians say they can no longer afford basic needs.
Seyed, a 33-year-old man who was born in Iran, but spent most of his life abroad in English-speaking countries, said the economy is the reason why he decided to join the rally.
“I’m definitely here to support Iran and I’m definitely here to tell the government that we need to do some serious changes, especially when it comes to the economy,” he said. The government should prioritize policies that allow the average Iranian to have an ordinary life.
“We want similar things from the government [as the protesters did], especially when it comes to the economy, but we don’t believe in setting fire to the country,” she said.
The nationwide events on Saturday served to project that the government is in control, after several tumultuous months, in which critics and analysts alike questioned whether another revolution could be near.
Asked if she though the regime would still be around in another 44 years, the 53-year-old woman in Isfahan, who was a child under the Shah’s regime, said “Never, never.”
She said that there is a sense of freedom in the youth because of how awake they are. “I don’t think it will last for another two years.”
The people at the rally pointed to Libya and Iraq, two countries that struggled after their authoritarian leaders were ousted.