Zan. Zendegi. Azadi.

November 25, 2022 2:38 AM

Women, Life, Freedom is the cry heard across Iran since the death of Mahsa Amini 70 days ago. UN launches human rights investigation after Iranian regime murders over 300 protesters.

Debate: Call it a Revolution? Iran protest movement defies growing brutality. (france24)
Despite more than 300 Iranians killed, protests show no signs of stopping (DeutcheWelle)
Why is Iran's TikTok generation demanding 'Women, Life, Freedom'? (BBC)
Evin prison fire: Several dead after fire at Iran's notorious detention centre (BBC)
Protesters set fire to Ayatollah Khomeini’s ancestral home. (Guardian)
Iran university students strike, piling pressure on rulers (Reuters)
Iran soccer team silent during national anthem at its first World Cup game. (NBC)
Rapper Toomaj who protested over death of Mahsa Amini faces execution in Iran. (Guardian)

posted by adept256 (17 comments total)

I'm watching Iran play Wales at the World Cup. After the national team protested the regime by not singing the national anthem, the government pressured them to sing, and they mumbled their way through it this time around. Yesterday, seemingly as a warning to the team, Voria Ghafouri, a footballer who'd recently been in the national squad, was arrested for protesting. During the national anthem, the cameras cut to the crowd and showed both a woman and man crying.
posted by Kattullus at 3:11 AM on November 25, 2022 [3 favorites]

At that same World Cup match, a woman raised an Iranian national team replica shirt with the name Mahsa Amini and the number 22, for her age. Security then removed the shirt.
posted by Kattullus at 3:42 AM on November 25, 2022 [11 favorites]

Thanks for posting this.
It all makes my heart cry. I hope the protesters will succeed, but I know it will be very hard, and maybe impossible. The structures of oppression in Iran are very strong, because they are so complex. Many authoritarians make the mistake of gathering all the power at the top, and then if the leader topples, there is nothing. Not in Iran.
posted by mumimor at 3:56 AM on November 25, 2022 [5 favorites]

The previous Iranian revolution took a little over a year, according to Wikipedia, which counts from first major internationally-reported protest to new regime installed, so I suspect it’s still too early to predict how this will end - at least for those of us looking in from the outside. Best of luck to everyone struggling for a freer Iran, following the very long Persian tradition of valuing vibrant, tolerant social and political cultures.
posted by eviemath at 4:55 AM on November 25, 2022 [3 favorites]

I know it's thanksgiving for you guys, but a Thanks Obama! article in 2022?

Meanwhile the right-wing are fantasizing about morality police of their own.

Holy shit they cite Kissinger.

This post is not about America.
posted by adept256 at 5:34 AM on November 25, 2022 [3 favorites]

Her name was Jina.
posted by Etrigan at 6:27 AM on November 25, 2022 [6 favorites]

Quilette's headline article right now is a gender-essentialist anti-trans article, so... not sure that site is a great source of information.

Given our history with Iran, this is not a thing for the US to be involved in. Iranian revolutionaries will find their way through this or not on their own.
posted by kokaku at 6:30 AM on November 25, 2022 [11 favorites]

Quillette guy is talking out of his ass. Sorry about my language, but that is what it is.

It's absolutely possible to support the current Iranian uprising without turning to Neo-Con rubbish, which was wrong when it led to the invasion of Iraq, and is still wrong.
posted by mumimor at 6:36 AM on November 25, 2022 [6 favorites]

Yeah, there is no way invading Iran or anything remotely like that will end well. There’s also pretty much no chance of it happening, fortunately.
posted by Slinga at 7:17 AM on November 25, 2022

Yeah, there is no way invading Iran or anything remotely like that will end well. There’s also pretty much no chance of it happening, fortunately.

It's also likely precluding any action being taken to stop/slow Iranian arms shipments to Russia.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:37 AM on November 25, 2022

Mod note: One comment deleted. Linking to Quillete (a far right source) might not be a great idea.
posted by loup (staff) at 8:42 AM on November 25, 2022 [14 favorites]

^ understatement of the month.
posted by eviemath at 9:09 AM on November 25, 2022 [4 favorites]

Thanks for this post, adept256. I hope for the protestors' safety and success. I'm glad the protests are continuing to get international attention, despite the difficulties getting information out of Iran.
posted by mersen at 9:31 AM on November 25, 2022 [2 favorites]

Ultimate the success or failure of the revolution will come down to the willingness of security forces to follow orders and keep shooting their neighbors and fellow Iranians. There is almost nothing any western country can do to influence the outcome.
posted by interogative mood at 10:56 AM on November 25, 2022

Are there revolutions that succeed without the help of rival foreign powers? I suppose with the ubiquity of "intelligence agencies" it would be hard to know definitively.

Anyway, I mentally support the Iranians overthrowing their oppressors but am unsure how to materially support them.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 12:33 PM on November 25, 2022

The UN has a big mouth but no teeth. They will do nothing. It's up to the courage of the Iranian people.

Which is considerable. Day after day I have watched this thing, thrilling in my heart to the courage displayed. Real courage, life on the line courage.

The Iranian people have real guts.

I have been with the Iranian ppl since this thing started, with them in my heart. Which is about the same as "thoughts and prayers" after another school gets shot up but it's all I have.

We in the US cannot blame the Iranian people or their government to distrust anything we do or say. Sadly, it is not for us to be able to do anything to help.

When those jets smashed into those towers in New York, over a million people in Tehran marched in solidarity with the US, candles held high.

How i would love them to shed those prigs waving "holy books" around. The Iranians are a decent, good ppl.
posted by dancestoblue at 11:11 PM on November 25, 2022 [1 favorite]

Iranian protesters call for three-day strike as pressure on regime builds, reports Patrick Wintour for the Guardian. Excerpt:

Protesters in Iran have called for a three-day strike this week amid conflicting reports that its “morality police” had been shut down, and as the US said the leadership in Tehran had locked itself into a “vicious cycle” that had cut it off from its own people and the international community.

The call steps up pressure on Iranian authorities after the attorney general said this weekend that the morality police – whose detention of a young woman triggered months of protests – had been shut down. There was no confirmation of the closure from the interior ministry, which is in charge of the morality police, and Iranian state media said the attorney general, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, was not responsible for overseeing the force.

Hundreds of people have been killed in the unrest that erupted in September after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who was detained by the morality police for flouting hijab rules. Montazeri also said on Saturday that the government was reviewing the law on the compulsory hijab, one of the issues that sparked the protests that have lasted more than 10 weeks.

The activist HRANA news agency said 470 people had been killed as of Saturday, including 64 minors.

Protesters seeking to maintain their challenge to Iran’s clerical rulers have called for a three-day economic strike and a rally in Tehran’s Azadi Square on Wednesday. Similar calls for strike action and mass mobilisation have in past weeks resulted in an escalation in the unrest.

Here’s an earlier BBC report about the attorney general announcing the disbanding of the morality police, which may or may not happen. Either way, ruling elites are clearly pulling in different directions.
posted by Kattullus at 10:19 AM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]