Iran: A month after the death of Mahsha Amini, mass protests shake the country

Mahsha Amini’s death set off a chain reaction in Iran, confronting the authorities with one of the biggest challenges since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. A challenge whose outcome remains uncertain.

The spark that ignited the fire of the protests, which have taken on the character of an uprising, was the death of the 22-year-old Iranian woman of Kurdish origin. Mahsha Amini was arrested by the morality police in Tehran for violating the strict dress code that requires women to wear headscarves.

She was initially taken to a detention center and died on September 16 in a hospital. According to Iranian authorities, her death is related to a brain condition. However, her family maintains that the girl died due to a fatal blow to the head.

Since then, many young women have led the protests that have rocked Iran, chanting anti-government slogans, removing and burning their headscarves, and standing up to police officers.

A month later, the protest movement that started in Iranian Kurdistan, the birthplace of Mahsha Amini, spread throughout Iran: to schools, universities and even oil refineries. Clashes also broke out on Saturday night in Tehran’s Evin prison, where political prisoners are held.

Political analysts estimate that the movement will not subside despite violent repression, mass arrests and internet censorship. But “to succeed” it needs to become more structured, according to Cornelius Andebar from MKO Carnegie Europe, who stresses that “much more than protests and sanctions” is needed to topple the regime.

In an Iran hit by US sanctions and plagued by an economic crisis, protests have rocked the country in recent years, such as in 2009 after the controversial re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency, or in 2019 due to a sharp rise in energy prices.

But none of these movements posed such a serious threat to the foundations of the Islamic Republic, says Sayyid Sadr, head of the UK-based NGO Justice for Iran. Today’s protests are “much bigger” than in 2019, the Iranian lawyer explains.

“The uprising began as a response to restrictions on women (…) but evolved into a campaign to overthrow the regime,” says a study by the United States-based Soufan Center.

Slogans like “death to the dictator” had not been heard so much. Posters of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were torn down and others depicting General Qassem Soleimani — who was killed in a US raid in Iraq in January 2020 — were burned.

Videos have been posted on social media of protesters resisting police, setting police cars on fire and setting up barricades.

The toll is heavy: the crackdown on protests has claimed the lives of at least 108 people, according to the Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights. The authorities are carrying out a barrage of arrests, particularly targeting journalists, activists and artists.

The uprising has sidelined Iran’s traditional political struggles between reformists and conservatives, attracting the attention of the international community that had focused in previous months on negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program.

RES-EMP

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