People in Iran have been protesting for more freedom for weeks. But huge protests have already taken place in Iran. For example in 2008, when three million people took to the streets. And it seemed like there wasn’t always real change.
But these protests are different, says Iranian historian and expert Peyman Jafari news hour. “The protests of 2009 were about political demands, like democratic elections. In 2018 and 2019, they were about socio-economic issues. And now you see that those lines are coming together, that people want a system change. This makes it different from the last time.”
moral police
Yet much remains the same: the state still controls the repressive apparatus, Jafari sees. But he reads in the Iranian media that the state is showing a little more space. “That there is a debate at the top: this is a nice change, how do we deal with it? We cannot solve it only with repression”.
This has also led to some concrete changes. “For example, the morality police have been taken off the streets,” Jafari says. “It will be very difficult for the elite to return to five weeks ago, so they will have to do something. It remains to be seen what exactly that is.”
Despite these changes, the number of people taking to the streets still cannot be compared to previous protests. “There are now about tens of thousands of people on the street,” says Jafari. “But the sympathy for these protests is enormous among a large part of the Iranian population. People who don’t dare to protest shout slogans from the rooftops or honk their horns in their cars. And on Twitter the name of. Mahsa Amini retweeted millions of times. “
Other generations
To really shake up the regime, a “critical mass” of hundreds of thousands of people is needed, Jafari thinks. Now it is mainly young people who take to the streets.
“93 percent of the inmates are under the age of 25,” says Jafari. “They are the driving force. They want the freedom to wear what they want, political freedoms. In the coming months the question will be: can these protests not only involve large sections of the population as passive sympathizers, but also really participate in the street or on strike. ? “
