The Mahsa Amini protests in Iran

Dec 07, 2022 at 13:36 907

The British Guardian newspaper reported that protestors had gathered outside Kasra hospital, where Mahsa Amini had been pronounced dead on September 16, 2022. This marks the start of the Mahsa Amini protests in Iran.

Mahsa Amini was a 22-year-old woman who had been arrested by the Guidance Patrol (Morality Police) for allegedly violating Iran’s mandatory hijab law by wearing her hijab “improperly”; the hijab is a way of social control over the (female) population. Eyewitnesses claim that Mahsa Amini had been beaten by Guidance Patrol officers.

Masha Amini was buried the following day in her hometown, Saqqez. The funeral was attended by several hundred people who shouted the now famous 2022-revolt slogan “woman, life, freedom” as well as “death to the dictator”, refering to Ali Khamenei (*1939), a Twelver Shia Grand Ayatollah who occupies the post of Supreme Leader since 1989 and who is former president of the totally corrupt, pseudo-Islamic Republic of Iran (1981-1989).

As I wrote on January 1, 2018 the Iranian protests have little chance of success unless they become a mass movement. The Hong Kong and Belarus protests have shown that even that may not be enough if the regime in place is ready to use excessive force to suppress any dissent. Some authoritarian regimes sometimes are ready to use their monopoly of violence (Gewaltmonopol) excessively, killing thousands to stay in power. Unarmed protesters have no chance against the heavily armed police, military or paramilitary security forces of those regimes. Without a part of the regime, the police, the military joining the protesters and/or without help from abroad, a ruthless regime can stay in place a long time.

In the case of Iran, because if its history, direct intervention from foreign powers is not desired by most Iranians. This is a problem because the estimated 150,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards, including the Basij militia, are ready to use excessive force against civilians.

The totally corrupt, pseudo-religious regime which is, according to estimations, supported by 10% to 20% of the population, mostly those who profit from the regime economically, financially, has moved to a brutal crackdown on protesters, imprisoning many, torturing (e.g. the famous rapper Toomaj Salehi from Isfahan) and sentencing people to death. The opposition in Iran has been silenced, imprisoned and/or exiled a long time ago. There is no opposition leader with a substantial following in Iran. However, this time, because of the regime killing teenagers, protesters come from all walks of life, representing many different age, social class, professional, political, ethnical and religious backgrounds. Students and their mothers, bazaar merchants, workers in the steel, oil and gas industry, etc. are protesting, on strike and/or in support of protesters. The nationwide strikes are reminiscent of the ones which helped bring down the Shah in 1979.

The weakness of the 2022 protests is also the strength of the movement: the lack of a leader or several key figures who offer a clear alternative to the regime in place. The regime can arrest can arrest thousands of protesters without being able to kill the protests because millions have largely similar goals: an end to the violent, corrupt, incompetent, pseudo-religious regime.

Reports by foreign media such as Reuters and The Daily Telegraph have estimated the fortune controlled directly or indirectly by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to roughly $65 billion to $100 billion. Add to this Ali Khamenei’s direct or indirect control over the executive and legislative branches of government, the judiciary and the media, police the military and paramilitary forces, you can conclude that Ali Khamenei’s grip on power is stronger than Shah Reza Pahlavi’s ever was. Among the roughly 80 million Iranians are some 250,000 millionaires.

The 10% to 20% of the Iranian population profiting from the regime will do pretty much anything not to lose power and, therefore, their fortune. Without millions in the street, regime change is very unlikely. As stated above, protesters probably even need a part of the police and/or military and/or paramilitary on their side to topple Ali Khamenei and his gangster regime.

Further reading in French: Shah Mohammad Réza Pahlavi.

Persian sheet music. Beauty items at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk.

Photograph of Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Cropped from a photo showing Iranian lamenters meet with the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran on January 23, 2022. Source: https://farsi.khamenei.ir/photo-album?id=49438#i via Wikimedia. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Article added on December 7, 2022 at 13:36 Swiss time.