For the past several months, there has been a political and social earthquake in Iran sparked by the police killing of the 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini for committing the crime of not wearing the religious hijab. Since then there have been mass demonstrations, militant confrontations with the police, and labor strikes, particularly from workers in the petrochemical industry.
Those who have participated in the uprising have faced extreme repression and violence. According to human rights groups, hundreds of protesters have been killed, including a considerable number of children. There are also currently an estimated 15,000 protesters incarcerated in Iranian jails who face savage torture. On Nov. 6, 2011, the Iranian parliament voted overwhelmingly to urge the judiciary to issue death sentences for these thousands of protesters who are currently locked up. And then one week later, the regime issued its first death sentence of a protester.
The goal of the Iranian regime is to brutalize the protestors into submission, and impose fear into the population in order to put down the uprising. But in spite of the brutality, people continue to pour out into the streets. Women across the country as well as popular athletes and actresses continue to carry out bold demonstrations by publicly taking off their hijabs as a statement of defiance. The bolder individuals have even knocked turbans off of clerics’ heads.
The brutal regime is prepared to do everything in its power to try to push the population back through terror. But more than one month in, with protests continuing to erupt, with escalating strikes in the working class still a possibility, the story is far from over. And the population is showing every day its willingness to keep fighting.
Down with the Iranian regime!
