September 3, 2021
The anti-regime protests have largely petered out with the surge in the coronavirus, although some of the strikes in the oil industry are reportedly continuing.
The protests were never coordinated and just sprung up spontaneously in mid-May across many provinces especially in Khuzestan. There were a handful of protests in Tehran, but not many and not with coordination. Students, who have been in the forefront of most anti-regime demonstrations since the Pahlavi regime, did not appear to mount any protests this time around.
Human rights activists organized some small gatherings in Tehran, but they went largely unnoticed.
The largest and longest protests were those across a dozen cities in Khuzestan province that were mounted to protest the limited water supplies. The general public was agitated when the water that came out of their faucets was the color of mud and undrinkable.
The loudest single protest in Tehran was a spontaneous one at a Metro station in west Tehran. The Metro system canceled many trains when the government ordered most businesses in Tehran to shut down because of the coronavirus. But most businesses just ignored that order and the public did, too. So, when the Metro station became packed with people waiting for trains that didn’t come, they erupted in a spontaneous demonstration against the regime.
The strikes have occurred across 12 provinces, but mostly in the southern oilfields by contract workers protesting the absence of on-time pay as well as other work- and pay-related issues. There are 105,000 contract workers in the oil industry. They do not have the same protections, working hours or pay accorded regular employees.
Daily blackouts continue all across the country because the power grid cannot meet the demand for electricity. But the blackouts seem not to be prompting more demonstrations anymore. The blackouts often come at odd times, as the government is still unable to stick to its public schedule of outages.
A major fire struck at the power station in Neyshabur August 25. The extent of the damage was not clear, but it cannot help to improve the desperate supply situation for electricity.
Meanwhile, the Judiciary opened cases against six human rights activists who launched a rally outside the Interior Ministry July 20 to support the protesters in Khuzestan. One of the six is Narges Mohammadi, who has been in perpetual trouble with the regime for her activism.
