October 14, 2022
by Warren L. Nelson
The daily protests against the regime have now entered their second month, but without the regime showing any signs of weakening let alone any indication of willingness to compromise.
The dress code has been central to the public uprising, and was the match that started the blaze. But the protests have evolved into a true revolution, with large numbers of protesters explicitly calling for the end of the regime for the first time over the many mass protests that have erupted since 1999.
One might expect the regime to offer some concession to try to end the daily challenges. Most logically, the regime could offer to make the dress code optional, as advocated even by many of those women who wear the chador by choice. But the regime has not offered any concessions whatsoever believing, in the eyes of many, that concessions telegraph weakness and would just make things harder for the regime.
Narges Bajoghli, a Johns Hopkins University anthropologist who studies Iran, told The Wall Street Journal, “Given that half of the population must veil, this issue cuts across class, ethnicity and social position.” But the regime doesn’t seem to see it that way. A poll by the Netherlands-based survey group GAMAAN found in 2020 that 72 percent of the Iranians it polled opposed mandatory veiling.
The regime’s response to the mass uprising has been to blame everything on foreigners, a theme that might have appeal to strong regime supporters yet does nothing but enflame the public at large because it re-enforces the public conviction that the regime is out-of-touch with reality and is pursuing policies that simply make life harder.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi waited 17 days before addressing the protests on October 3. He then focused almost exclusively on the theme that the Americans and Zionists schemed and plotted the riots. “I say clearly that these riots were engineered by America, the Zionist regime as well as their paid agents, with the help of some traitorous Iranians abroad. Their main problem is that Iran is now strong and independent…. They are looking for a return to the era of the Pahlavi Dynasty, which obeyed their orders like a milking cow.” That idea is now spun by the state media every day. Khamenehi added an order that the police “must stand up to criminals,” seen as a public endorsement of the use of force.
On October 2, the Intelligence Ministry said it had arrested nine foreign nationals from Germany, Poland, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and elsewhere for helping to organize rioting. It named none. But an Italian family said its 30-year-old daughter, Alessia Piperno, who had quit her job to travel around the world, had called home crying to say she had been jailed in Iran. She had earlier posted comments to her Instagram account critical of the regime, saying, “People are tired here and refuse to be manipulated by anyone.”
On the ground, the most violent opposition has erupted in border cities where Kurds and Baluchis predominate, leading to fears that the country could be broken up by ethnic separatists. But Kurdish leaders say their goal is more Kurdish autonomy within Iran, not secession. The Baluchis are another matter. And Baluchi nationalism may have been pumped up when the regime overreacted to some Baluchi stone throwing with mass shooting in Zahedan. Some estimates hold that half of all the deaths over the past month have occurred on that single day in Zahedan.
The regime has tried to quell the disturbances by shutting down access to the internet and mobile phones in an effort to stop coordination. But the disturbances appear largely spontaneous and not coordinated on any level beyond the local neighborhood. With internet and cellphone service interrupted, some people have resorted to the 20th Century method of handing out flyers on the street giving the date and place for the next planned protest.
There are hints that all may not be well within the regime security forces. Mohammad-Esmail Kowsar, a hardline Majlis deputy and former Pasdar general, spoke of disobedient security troops. He said, “If security forces do not fulfill their duties, they should be held accountable to their commanders and the people.” That is the sole suggestion up to now that security forces may be balking at attacking protesters.
In Tehran one of the quietest areas has been Azadi Square, often the center of protests in the past. Instead, there are reports of clashes with the police in scattered neighborhoods all over the city including the poorer neighborhoods of south Tehran, where there was little support for political protests in the past.
University students, who were quiet the first several days of the protests, have now become quite vocal. But they are protesting separately on their campuses, not marching together in the streets.
And in a new development unseen before, high school girls have rebelled in their schools. Videos show them taking off their headscarves and tearing pictures of Ayatollah Khomeini and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi off the walls and out of their textbooks. One video taken from an atrium showed girls loudly chanting “Marg bar dic-ta-tur” (Death to the dictator). The video then pans up to the second floor, where hundreds more were joining in the chant.
At another school, the principal had invited an officer from the Basiji to speak to the girls. A video shows him standing at the rostrum in silence as the girls wave their headscarves in the air and chant, “Get lost, Basiji.”
Yet another video showed security forces with batons attacking students inside their school grounds although the regime insists that it respects peaceful protests.
It is hard to tell how widespread the opposition is. With internet and mobile phone links often cut, the information is fragmentary. There have been many news reports saying the volume of protests had declined based on the smaller number of video clips being posted. But others say that just reflects the severing of communications links.
Some reports say the protests extend to all 31 provinces. Others say all but one province. A few say all but two provinces. Most reports now talk of protests in 150 cities, but without a list of names of cities that statistic is not credible.
There are three other key statistics: How many protesters have been killed; how many protesters have been arrested; and how many “leaders” have been arrested.
There are no good numbers.
At the high end, the Mojahedin-e Khalq say the regime killed 400 people and arrested 20,000 others in the first three weeks of protests.
The death toll varies by the hour and by the one citing a number as factual. The most common number cited, however, is the running tabulation by the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR), which gave a toll of 201 dead as of October 12. It says 93 or almost half died in Sistan va Baluchestan province, most of them on September 30, another 34 in the three Kurdish-majority provinces, with 28 dead in Mazandaran and 11 in Tehran. That leaves just 35 in the entire rest of the country and shows the regime’s focus on suppressing dissent in minority Kurdish and Baluchi areas.
The audio in some videos from Kurdistan also show the sound of machinegun fire, unheard in videos from other areas, and suggesting the regime is using military tactics rather than police tactics there.
The national government has given no arrest figures at all. State broadcasting said it had counted 41 in the first week of protests. But it has given no further numbers, presumably on the orders of the Interior Ministry. Some provincial governors general have given local arrest figures, numbering in the hundreds in each province. IHR said it had counted 1,200 arrests in the first three weeks. It seems likely that arrests total in the thousands but many of those arrested have been released after being warned.
Judiciary spokesman Masud Setayeshi said about three weeks into the protests that some 1,700 people had been released but declined to say how many had been arrested.
The latest wrinkle is that the Education Ministry has announced it is sending some of the high school students arrested to “re-education centers.” It won’t say how many it is sending or how long they will be confined there.
There are no leaders to be arrested, given the spontaneity of the protests. But the regime is clearly trying to round up people it sees as “influencing” the opposition and promoting unrest. The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) said that 92 major figures activists, journalists, lawyers had been arrested in the first three weeks. Any celebrity who says a kind word about the protests or an unkind word about the government’s efforts to put down the protests is liable to arrest.
“They want to put anyone who can become a voice of the protesters or play a role in how these protests develop behind bars right now,” said Hadi Ghaemi, CHRI’s executive director. “The protests are leaderless and grass-roots. The impact will be determined when there’s a collective voice. And these are the kind of people that can be that collective voice.”
One of those arrested is songwriter and singer Shervin Hajipour, whose crime was to write a song that has become the unofficial anthem of the protests. It is a soulful song, with lyrics strung together from tweets sent out by demonstrators risking their lives to defy the country’s ruling clerics. It lists their complaints against the regime and is known as Baraye (Because of).” The lyrics go:
“Because of dancing in the streets,” which is banned.
“Because of every time we were afraid to kiss our lovers.”
“Because of the embarrassment of an empty pocket.”
“Because of the yearning for a normal life.”
Other lyrics cite corruption, censorship, gender discrimination, environmental degradation and national tragedies, such as the near extinction of the Persian cheetah and the downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane in 2020.
“Because of ‘woman, life, freedom’,” the song concludes, echoing what has become the most popular protest chant: “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi.”
Hajipour posted the song to his Instagram account September 28. It accrued more than 40 million views, according to Amin Sabeti, a London-based expert on Iranian cybersecurity, by the time authorities forced Hajipour to take it down and arrested him the following day. He has since been released.
The core question, of course, is not about numbers but about where Iran is headed.
Analysts almost overwhelmingly predict the regime will survive this latest outburst. Of course, that is what most analysts said in early 1978. If the analysts are to change their minds, the protests will have to continue for much, much longer than a month. It took 13 months for the Shah’s regime to be overthrown.
Iran’s rulers are determined to maintain their grip on power at any cost. For one thing, they have nowhere to go. The Shah’s supporters began bailing out of Iran long before the end because they could easily set up residency in Europe and North America. The men who have made the Islamic Republic work are not likely to be welcome in many places other than Syria.
If the protests persist, the Islamic Republic will turn to its usual solution: “unrestrained violence against unarmed civilians to quash the protests this time around,” said Kasra Aarabi, the Iran Program Lead at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change in London.
Although the number of protesters cannot be compared to the 1979 Islamic revolution, when millions took to the streets, the solidarity and unanimity of protesters calling for the downfall of the clerical establishment are reminiscent. “The one striking similarity the current protests have with 1979 is the mood on the streets, which is explicitly revolutionary…. They don’t want reform, they want regime change,” said Aarabi. “Of course, no one can predict when this moment will happen: it could be weeks, months or even years…. But the Iranian people have made up their mind,” he added.
Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said most Iranians are not protesting. He says that on the busiest day of protests only 45,000 people came out onto the streets. As for college students, Iran has 3.2 million and Vahidi says only 18,000 participated in protests on the busiest day.
Others point out that just a few weeks ago almost 3 million Iranians walked to Najaf in Iraq for the Arbaeen mourning rites a number dwarfing the ongoing protests.
To human rights campaigners, in 1978 the Shah’s great error was to alienate the population with torture and bloodshed. But in hindsight, many historians say the Shah was too weak, slow and irresolute in repression. Today’s rulers in Tehran are determined not to show the kind of weakness they believe sealed the fate of the Shah.
“The regime’s approach is far more reliant on repression than the Shah,” Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, told Reuters. “If Khamenehi does not listen … and stop this nonsense that protests are all foreign-led, there will be more protests,” he said.
But Interior Minister Vahidi says foreign countries none named are paying cash to protest organizers. And he said some are paying 5 million rials ($17) for every Molotov cocktail produced.
The protests are “secular, non-ideological and, to some extent, anti-Islamic”, said Saeid Golkar, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. “Iranians are revolting against the clergy … who use religion to suppress the people.”
The anti-Shah revolt reverberated around provincial cities, towns and villages. But what paralyzed his rule were strikes by oil workers, who turned off the taps on most of the country’s revenue, and by bazaar merchants, who funded the rebel clerics. Neither took a stand in the first three weeks of the protests. But many merchants are on strike now, including in Tehran, where IranWire said the Grand Bazaar, Shiraz Bazaar, Lalehzar, Sepahsalar Garden and Tajrish Bazaar were largely shut down. And, according to the contract oil workers union, 4,000 oil and gas workers have gone on strike, chiefly at the Abadan refinery and the Asaluyeh natural gas terminal.
“Bazaaris were important during the 1979 revolution as, at the time, they saw the Shah’s economic reforms as against their interests and therefore backed the revolution,” Vatanka said. “Today, the Bazaar has nothing to defend, as it no longer controls the economy which is now in the hands of the Guards.”
One key question that cannot be answered fully is how many protests start violently with the security forces just responding to riotous groups, and how many start peacefully and then are attacked without provocation by the security forces.
Students at some universities say they held sit-ins on campuses with speeches and chanting but no violence, when the police came onto the campuses with batons flying. Video of the deadly Zahedan clash shows Friday prayers just ending October 7 with most people milling about and a handful tossing rocks at a police building, when the police opened fire on everyone from the police station and adjoining rooftops, suggesting the police were just waiting for the opportunity to shoot.
Amnesty International said only “a minority” of those present threw stones at the police station. It said it found “no evidence” that the protesters posed a serious threat to the security forces.
But it is most likely that in some cases protesters initiated attacks, throwing Molotov cocktails at banks and government buildings. There is no way to know what proportion of protests became violent because of police action or because of riotous behavior by some protesters.
A little recognized side effect of the uprising and the regime’s frequent shutdown of the internet is that many new businesses in Tehran receive their orders from the public over the internet and are now in deep trouble. The Union of Computer Operators of Tehran said that 41 percent of its member firms said they have lost from 25 percent to 50 percent of their sales while 47 percent of the firms said they had seen their business constrict by more than 50 percent.
In 1978, the nights would be filled with shouts from rooftops and balconies of “Allahu Akbar.” Shouts from rooftops and balconies have been resumed this past month. But now the main slogans heard are “Mar bar dic-ta-tur” and the phrase that has become the centerpiece of these protests: “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi (Woman, Life, Freedom).
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian defended Iran’s action in cutting off internet access, stating as fact that the United States cut off Americans’ access to the internet when a mob invaded the Capitol and even closed the social media accounts of former President Donald Trump on national security grounds. Both statements are false. In fact, Trump was not the former president at the time of the Capitol attack; he was the incumbent president and unlikely to shut down his own social media accounts.
Because of the regime’s attack on internet access, there is a huge demand for Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) that can bypass government controls and give a user access to the internet. TOP10VPN, a VPN reviews and research site, said that on September 26 demand for VPNs from Iran peaked at 3,082 percent more than a month earlier and averaged about 2,000 percent over normal levels in the first few weeks of the protests.
For comparison’s sake, this year’s disorders have now lasted four weeks. The 1999 student protests, the first real challenge to the Islamic Republic but which did not involve the general public like now, were crushed in six days. The 2009 protests over the presidential election that year, were intense for about six weeks but sputtered on sporadically for a full six months before coming to an end. That was by far the largest and most widespread challenge to the regime before now. Fatemeh Shams, who teaches Persian literature at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, told the New Yorker magazine that there is a big difference between this year’s protests and those of 2009. “The difference, I think, is that back in 2009, there was still hope for reform. People then were chanting in the streets for a free and fair election. The main slogan was ‘Give me back my vote.’ There was still a belief that the system could be reformed, in the sense that, if there were a free and fair election, the protesters could possibly have a candidate that represented their hopes and their demands, to some extent. Today’s revolution is completely leaderless in the sense that none of the previous figures political figures such as Mohammad Khatami, who was the ex-president of Iran none of these are being called upon. People in the streets are not waiting for anyone to come and to take the lead. They are the leaders of the revolution.”