December 16, 2022
by Warren L. Nelson
Every day still sees several protest gatherings around the country, but the attendance has dropped off substantially and most now involve fewer than 100 participants.
The anti-regime movement hasn’t failed by any means, but it is fading, if measured by the number of people on the streets.
A daily tabulation of protests suggests that on December 5, when more protests were recorded than on any other day in October, November or December, fewer than 4,000 Iranians actually took to the streets
The anonymous “organizers” of the protests—30 “neighborhood” groups across every major city that designate types and locales for protests—still operate and still draw a response. But the response is now much smaller than before and the organizing effort is sometimes frustrated by regime agents, who call for protests on different days and in different locations.
Attendance began slackening off in mid-November. Organizers then called for a major outpouring on December 5, 6 and 7. And there was a big increase in the number of protests those days.
But, according to the Critical Threat Project, a tabulation put together daily by the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the attendance was poor. AEI/ISW said there was a total of 61 protests over those three days, but it rated 72 percent of them as “small,” meaning they drew fewer than 100 participants, and not even a single one as “large,” drawing more than 1,000 participants.
Another eight were rated as “medium,” meaning 100 to 1,000 participants, and three as small to medium. AEI/ISW said it didn’t have enough information to judge the size of the remaining six protests.
AEI/ISW said there were 29 protests—all of them small or of undetermined scale—on December 5, which it said was the largest number of protests since it started keeping tabs two weeks after the protests erupted September 16. Assuming all the small protests drew 100 participants each and the undetermined ones drew few hundred, the total would still fall short of 4,000. The last protest AEI/ISW rated as “large,” with more than a thousand participants, was November 25 in Zahedan, a largely Baluchi city. However, while the size of most protests is small, the volume of labor strikes has soared in recent days. In other words, the base of the opposition may not be shrinking, but shifting—although it will take more time to assess that. AEI/ISW said it tabulated social media reports of strikes in 73 cities on December 5, with that number unlikely to be complete. The volume of strikes is impressive. The strikers chant against the regime, but the main focus of the strikes is usually local economic grievances.
Furthermore, more merchants have been joining the opposition movement by shutting down their shops on designated days. The regime is fighting the protesting merchants by ordering their shops shut permanently. But, since many bazaars have shut down completely on protest days, that tactic is not likely to go far. And opposition groups in Mashhad and Karaj asked the public to post photos on social media of shops that stayed open so that shoppers could boycott them.
On December 8, the day after the three days of protests called by the opposition, the regime announced it had executed the first person arrested during the protests. He was Mohsen Shekari, a 23-year-old arrested in Tehran for allegedly attacking a Basiji with a machete back in September. The Basiji did not die. But Shekari was hanged.
His family was not told in advance about the execution, contrary to standard practice, and his body was not returned to his family for burial, presumably because the regime worried his gravesite would become a shrine.
It is widely assumed that the regime decided on the execution in an effort to strike fear into the protesters. Volker Turk, the Austrian just elected as the new UN high commissioner for human rights, said the execution was “clearly designed to send a chilling effect to the rest of the protesters.” It could, however, have the opposite effect. There could be an upsurge January 17, the 40th day after Shekari’s execution, which is a traditional day of mourning.
Abbas Abdi, a leading Reformist journalist, said Shekari’s execution could be a “catastrophe” for the regime, even if it radicalizes only 10 percent of the protesters and leads them to use violence.
Just four days after Shekari was hanged, the authorities in conservative Mashhad hanged a second man, Majid-Reza Rahnavard, 23. He had been convicted of stabbing—and killing—two Basijis November 19 and injuring four others.
Some thought it odd the regime hanged the second man so soon, before a good reading of public reaction to executions could be taken. Furthermore, news reports said Rahnavard was hanged “in public.” Some speculated that Rahnavard’s hanging was ordered by the powers in Mashhad, rather than Tehran.
As of December 7, the Iran Human Rights group based in Oslo said it had tabulated a minimum of 458 deaths in protests held in 26 of Iran’s 31 provinces since the protests began September 16. It said 63 of the dead were under the age of 18 and 29 were women, a low number that debunks the common Western reports asserting that the protests are led by women. It would be more accurate to say they are inspired by women, but videos show most of those on the streets are male.
The Oslo group said that of the dead, 29 percent died in the three primarily Kurdish provinces of Kurdistan, West Azerbaijan and Kermanshah, with 28 percent killed in Sistan va Baluchistan province. Tehran has seen 46 deaths or 10 percent of the total. According to one estimate, 66 security personnel have also been killed.
The government has not issued any figures on deaths, injuries or arrests. But one general interviewed on TV said the death toll had passed 300 while another said 200.
The total number of arrests has passed 18,000, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). A large number of them, probably the vast majority, have been released after questioning. This arrest total far exceeds the estimated 4,000 arrested during the 2009 post-election disorders, which lasted, off and on, for six months. It also exceeds the 8,000 believed arrested in October 2019 in the brief disorders over the tripling of gasoline prices.
Some provinces have issued arrest figures, but the national government has only issued one arrest statistic announcing November 22 that it had arrested 40 foreigners for sparking riots. It has not announced their names or nationalities. Nor has it said anything else about them since announcing the number.
The regime periodically issues statements saying its patience has been tried and it is about to cease treating the rioters with a velvet glove. The most recent such warning came
December 8, when National Police Chief Hossain Ashtari said, “Security forces will no longer exercise restraint.”
On the one hand, this is nonsense, since the police and other security forces have repeatedly attacked peaceful marches with truncheons in an effort to disperse them. On the other hand, a death toll of around 500 after 100 continuous days of protests from one end of the country to the other is not astoundingly high. While the regime has certainly not barred its security officers from using lethal force, it is certainly not trying to stack up bodies in the street. Many revolutionary leaders have said in the past that it was the death toll in 1978 that built up the opposition to the Shah and brought the end of the monarchy. But the death toll this year almost certainly already exceeds that of 1978.
The government forces are using mainly truncheons and shotguns to confront protesters, along with paint guns to mark protesters for arrest, though gunshots have been heard at many protests. The shotguns may be doing the most damage. In late November, 370 ophthalmologists signed letters saying hundreds of protesters have been brought to their offices with serious eye injuries.
The government has deployed mostly police and Basiji to confront the protesters, but it sent regular Pasdar combat units into several Kurdish cities when the protesters threatened to take over whole cities in November. Those military operations appear to have succeeded as the reports of protests in those cities since the military deployment have only cited small protests.
The opposition has been strongest in Kurdish and Baluchi areas or at least the regime has been most concerned about opposition in those areas and has launched the harshest repression of the protests in those areas.
The uprising is very, very different from what happened in 1978. Back then protests were episodic, generally being called every 40 days to mourn those killed 40 days earlier. This time, there have been multiple protests every single day for almost 100 days. But the 1978 protests assembled hundreds of thousands of people, while the current protests rarely gather even 100 people.
On November 23, AEI said it had recorded protests since the outbreak in September in 183 cities and towns across all 31 provinces.
While the opposition refers to its actions as “protests,” the regime media uniformly call them “riots” and do not recognize any of them as legitimate acts of displeasure with the government. It is certainly true that some of the protest gatherings have resulted in outright riots. What isn’t clear is how many of those riots have been spurred by the security forces attacking peaceful protesters and how many have originated with the protesters.
The protests commonly include the overturning of neighborhood trash bins and setting the contents on fire. There have also been numerous cases of arson committed on the kiosks set up by the traffic police at major intersections. But there does not appear to have been any attacks on major regime power centers, like the Interior Ministry or Intelligence Ministry. Someone did throw a Molotov cocktail into the state broadcasting station in remote Darreh Shahr, Ilam province, on December 9. And a fire was set in Rezavieh Seminary in Shiraz that same day. But, on the whole, the “revolution’s” violence has largely been confined to chanting and trash fires, even as the uprising has entered its fourth month with at least a handful of marches across the country every single day without surcease.
The regime discusses the protests at great length but only to blame them on the West. It does not accept that any of the protesters have any legitimate grievances. The daily fare dished out by the regime lays the blame for all of Iran’s ills on the West in general and the Americans in particular. On November 6, a total of 227 Majlis deputies or 78 percent of the members of that body signed a letter blaming the US for the disorder, comparing the protesters to Islamic State militants, and calling for speedy prosecutions and harsh punishments.
The latest twist in the regime’s rhetoric is the charge that the US started the street disorders as a pressure tactic to force the Islamic Republic to make more concessions in its talks over reviving the nuclear agreement. That allegation was made by Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
As for the United States, State Department spokesman Ned Price outlined the US policy in some detail December 6. “We’ve made very clear of late that the JCPOA talks are not on the agenda right now,” he said. “What we’re focused on now is ways we can support the protesters across Iran, support their ability to exercise their universal human rights, and hold to account those Iranian officials who are responsible for the brutal repression, who are responsible for efforts to cut off the Iranian people from the rest of the world, including their ability to communicate with the rest of the world and with Iranians themselves.
“We know that Iran is killing its young people. It’s sending UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] to Russia so that Russia can in turn kill Ukrainians. Our focus, for that reason, is on practical ways to confront Iran in these areas right now. But we can do all of those things while upholding the commitment that President Biden has made – namely, that Iran will never obtain a nuclear weapon.” The Biden Administration repeated for the third time that it is prepared as a last resort to use military power to keep the Islamic Republic from getting nuclear weapons.
A few days earlier, on November 30, Secretary of State Antony Blinken commented on what the Islamic Republic says the protests are all about: “What’s happening in Iran is first and foremost about Iranians, about their future, about their country, and it’s not about us. And one of the profound mistakes that the regime makes is to try to point the finger at others – at the United States, Europeans – claiming that we are somehow responsible for instigating or otherwise fanning the flames of the protests. That is to profoundly, fundamentally misunderstand their own people.”
But the US government does not expect the protests will end the current regime and it doesn’t see the Islamic Republic as fearful it will be expunged. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said December 3 the Iranian government does not see the ongoing protests in Iran as an “imminent threat to the regime.”
In an interview with NBC News, Haines said Iranian leaders could face more unrest because of high inflation and economic uncertainty.
“We’re not seeing the regime perceive this as an imminent threat to their stability and effect,” she said. “On the other hand,… they are really having challenges and even nationwide seeing sporadic close-downs of businesses, [which] from our perspective, that’s one of those things that will lead to a greater risk of unrest and instability over time.”
Haines said the Iranian government is “continuing to crack down” violently on the protesters but is struggling with some inside resistance on how to respond effectively. “We see some kind of controversies even within them about exactly how to respond within the government” to the unrest, Haines said.
In Israel, Brig. Gen. Amit Sarr, the senior analyst for Israel’s military intelligence, said, “The repressive Iranian regime will, it seems, manage to survive these protests…. But I think that, even if these protests wane, the reason [for them] will remain and thus the Iranian regime has a problem for years to come.”
It isn’t just the US government that has been tackling the Islamic Republic. All the major European powers have jumped aboard the boat condemning the Islamic Republic. Germany, which normally avoids issues that don’t directly involve Europe, has been among the most vocal, perhaps in part because its foreign minister is a woman, Annalena Baerbock, who sees what’s happening in Iran as primarily a gender issue.
Many countries in recent years have criticized the United States for its recourse to sanctions. But in recent weeks, since the protests began in Iran September 16, many countries have taken to sanctioning Iran. Canada has heaped on sanctions in unprecedented numbers, perhaps prompted by the fact its foreign minister is a woman. But the EU, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and assorted other states, including Switzerland, have also issued volleys of sanctions on Iran as they condemn the regime’s repressive response to the protests.
Iran, which insists sanctions violate international law, has responded by issuing sanctions against dozens of Western officials, despite the inconsistency.
Collectively, the leading Western nations decided to punish Iran by removing it from the UN Commission on the Status of Women, to which it was just elected several months ago over the objection of many.
The 54-member UN Economic and Social Council voted 29-8 with 16 abstentions to throw Iran off the panel December 14. The eight supporting Iran were Russia and China plus fellow outcasts Bolivia, Nicaragua and Zimbabwe plus, surprisingly, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and Oman. Others would undoubtedly have supported Iran but were not members of the Council and so could not vote.
No one but Iran argued that Iran’s policies on women justified its membership on a panel promoting the status of women. Russia and others, however, argued that kicking Iran out of a UN body could justify the West kicking other countries off other panels. Iran argued that the resolution to kick Iran off the panel was illegal because no country had ever been kicked off any UN panel.
Many Iranian expatriates lobbied long and loud for the Islamic Republic’s expulsion from the panel. Even women within Iran put together a letter asking the UN to drop Iran from the panel. One of the signers of that letter was Narges Mohammadi, a prominent women’s rights activist now in prison.
Atena Daemi, a rights activist in Iran, tweeted that the vote was “a victory that is the result of 43 years of Iranian women saying no to the Islamic Republic’s misogynistic policies.”
The greatest attention in recent weeks has focused on the announcement by the prosecutor general, Mohammad-Jafar Montazeri, that the “morality police” (Gasht-e Ershad or Guidance Patrol) was being disbanded. The Gasht-e Ershad’s sole mission is to enforce the dress code. It is part of the National Police, which comes under the Interior Ministry. The prosecutor general has no say in its operations. In the time since Montazeri announced the disbanding of the Gasht-e Ershad December 3, the police and Interior Ministry have stood silent, neither confirming nor denying the continuing existence of the morality police.
There are no reports of recent arrests by the Gasht-e Ershad and it appears its patrols have been suspended so as not to enflame public opinion, which polls show is overwhelmingly opposed to mandatory hejab. But the silence of the police and Interior Ministry suggest the regime is not prepared to backtrack on the dress code. Certainly, a number of political figures who oppose mandatory hejab have complained publicly that the regime meaning Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi opposes any concessions on the dress code.
The Gasht-e Ershad was created in 2006. Before that, the regular police enforced the dress code, so the Gasht-e Ershad is not essential to enforcement.
In fact, there is much talk about how to better enforce the dress code. Many hardliners see the street patrols of the Gasht-e Ershad as unnecessarily provocative and want more subtle enforcement. There is much talk now about using security cameras and facial recognition technology to identify women with no head covering. They would then be warned by text message, doing away with any face-to-face confrontation. According to one popular concept, after being caught the third time without their hair covered, their bank accounts would be frozen, again avoiding any physical confrontation with the offenders.
This sounds very impressive and ultra-modern. But few believe Iran has the facial recognition technology required, or the ability to link it to text messaging or to bank records.
While the regime expends all its rhetoric blaming foreign countries for the disorders, it devotes considerable police effort to rounding up those who might be called “influencers” for their presumed ability to exhort more people to go into the streets.
The Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) reported December 5 that police had sealed a jewelry shop and restaurant run by soccer legend Ali Daei after he backed the protests. Presumably, he has too much stature to be arrested. But retired soccer star Voria Ghafouri, a Kurd, has been jailed.
Those arrested include about 40 filmmakers, according to Mehdi Kouhian, who has been tracking cinema figures swept up in the disorders. He said another 110 have been summoned for questioning or banned from leaving the country.
IranWire reported December 9 that at least 60 journalists have been detained, with 13 of them freed as of that date.
Even the Jewish community, which appeared to be trying to lay low, told The Times of Israel that one Jew living in Shiraz had been arrested along with two in Tehran, one of whom was soon freed.
The Black Reward hackers’ group released documents it said it hacked from the Fars news agency showing that as of the beginning of December 115 military personnel had been arrested for participating in protests.
In addition, the authorities are having university students caught protesting expelled from their universities.
Much of the commentary by Iranian officials has been over the top and suggests many are not acting seriously in the face of the continuing protests. Perhaps the oddest expression of rage came from Brig. Gen. Mojtaba Fada, commander of the Pasdaran in Shiraz. He said that after ending the demonstrations, Iran would go to Israel and “frog-march” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to Iran “wearing a leash and a slave collar.”