The government is "simply not able to address its existing problems with the same cast of characters who created this disaster to begin with," he said.Ī police motorcycle burns during a protest in Tehran on Sept. With inflation around 40 per cent, natural gas and electricity shortages widespread and ongoing sanctions from the West, the regime has few ways to appease protesters economically - and no desire to do so politically, Vaez said. "Neither side is able to dislodge the other." "It is a battle of wills," said Ali Vaez, the Iranian-born director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group. The situation is "very grim and terrifying," said Katebi, but "that doesn't mean people's hopes are crushed or that the revolution is over." She predicts "more waves until victory."Īll this has brought Iran to a stalemate. "I just feel like they can attack me any time," one young woman told a Norwegian reporter in Tehran. The most common act of defiance is by women who walk the streets with their heads uncovered, nervous that security forces will pounce. Large protests in city centres, common last fall, are almost unseen. Gatherings now often happen at protesters' funerals or during mourning visitations traditionally held 40 days later. That has had a "chilling effect" on protests, says Hoda Katebi, a U.S.-based Iranian activist and writer.Ĭensorship of media and the internet makes it hard to know for sure, but demonstrations seem now to be smaller and less frequent. HRANA says 525 civilians have been killed. Other protesters have died on the streets, with security forces using "shotguns, assault rifles and handguns" against "largely peaceful" crowds, Human Rights Watch reported. 7, was 39-year-old Sayed Mohammad Husseini, whose Tehran lawyer tweeted his "confessions were tortured" out of him. (Handout /West Asia News Agency/Reuters)Īmong the latest to be executed, on Jan. Mohammad-Mehdi Karami speaks in a courtroom in December 2022 before being executed, for allegedly killing a member of the security forces during last year's protests in Iran. More than 100 additional protesters have been sentenced to death, says the Iranian human rights organization HRANA. So far, four men are known to have been hanged for their roles in demonstrations where the government says security forces were attacked and killed. Only a brutal crackdown on demonstrators fends off the threat to their power - including what UN Human Rights High Commissioner Volker Turk called Iran's "weaponization" of executions to eliminate dissent. Their religious doctrine holds less appeal for the broad collection of Iranians who have taken to the streets. The unrest was sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was arrested by Iran's morality police in September for not wearing her headscarf properly.īut the mullahs - led by Khamenei - have not won either. No loosening of strict Islamic edicts, and certainly not the complete regime change many want as they chant: "This is the year of the bloody uprising, Supreme Leader Khamenei will be overthrown." Yet after four months, the cries of "women, life, freedom," which echo through streets and cemeteries, campuses and workplaces have not brought the liberty demanded. Iran's protests may be more popular and the demands greater than any time since the country's 1979 Islamic revolution. This time, the voices may be louder and the anger may run deeper.
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