Anti-Regime Protests, Strikes Enter Sixth Week In Iran
The growing women-led protests in Iran entered a sixth week on Sunday while university students braved crackdown to challenge the government by holding rallies.
The growing women-led protests in Iran entered a sixth week on Sunday while university students braved crackdown to challenge the government by holding rallies.
Sharif University students in Tehran gathered in front of the canteen entrance chanting slogans against plainclothes Basij militias who attack and arrest students.
At Tehran's Amirkabir University male and female students defied the gender segregation rules and sat next to each other at the cafeteria. They sang Shervin Hajipour's protest song together.
Videos sent from the Azad University of Karaj in Western Tehran, show students chanting “This is no longer protests, It’s the beginning of a revolution.”
At Gohardasht Azad University in Karaj students also chanted slogans like “Women, Life, Liberty”.
Students at Yazd University in central Iran gathered in the courtyard calling on others to join them chanting “If you’re neutral, You have no honor,” and “When the university’s filled with blood, It’s forbidden to attend classes.”
Videos received by Iran International show that the students of Yasouj University in southwestern Iran gathered on the campus and chanted slogans such as “Dishonored Basijis, You are our ISIS” and “I will not go to class until I retain my right.”
Similar protests were also staged at universities in Mashahd, Khomeinishahr, and several other cities to slam the clerical dictatorship as well as a range of ethnic, religious, gender and generational contentions.
Meanwhile teachers, employees, and factoryworkers reportedly went on strike to show anger at the brutal clampdown on protesters.
On Sunday, teachers showed up at schools but refused to go to classrooms to teach, to show solidarity with nationwide protests and to condemn the killing of school students.
A video received from Sanandaj in western Iran shows schoolgirls removing their hijab chanting “Death to Dictator!”
Teachers in Saqqez in Kordestan province held a sit-in holding placards that read “Don’t disturb the mental health of students” and “I sacrifice my life for my students”.
In a similar move, teachers in Kordestan’s Marivan staged a sit-in protest holding placards that read “Don’t turn school into a garrison”, “Prison is not a place for students” and "No to imprisoning teachers”.
Reports on social media say in Shiraz, Lahijan, Nishapur and Bandar-e Anzali teachers refused to attend classes as well.
Reports say four school students have been arrested in Estahban in Fars province because of writing slogans on the walls.
Bank employees held a sit-in and strike near Argentina square in Tehran for the second day protesting the corruption of the appointed CEO of the Development and Export Bank and demanding their overdue salaries.
In another development a group of theater and cinema artists gathered in front of the Artists’ House in Tehran to show anger at holding Tehran Short Film Festival amid the ongoing uprising.
Furthermore, a group of young boys and girls in central city of Esfahan joined hands together to create a chain of empathy. In recent days, similar movements, including free hugs for the grieving nation have been launched in different cities.
A video received by Iran International shows that on Sunday several women took off their headscarves on Tehran’s Resalat highway asking passing cars to join them.
Another video shows angry protesters remove the turban of a cleric chanting “Hey Mullah! Get Lost!”
Reportedly truck drivers have gone on strikes across Iran. It is said that the workers of the refineries in Asaluyeh, Bandar Abbas, Abadan, Mahshahr are still on strike, while more than two hundred of them have been arrested.
The Berlin rally was the biggest-ever gathering of Iranians outside Iran, which took place peacefully and successfully, drawing crowds from most European countries.
There is little doubt that for now the protest movement, that many call ‘the revolution,’ has brought about a strong unity on one major issue – people in Iran and in the diaspora do not want the clerical regime.
Gone is the idea of being patient and waiting for reforms in Iran.
Since 2017, the governing military-clerical elite has proven that it is increasingly tilting toward more despotism and radicalism in domestic and foreign policies. Even regime insiders who were a bit more moderate have been completely sidelined since February 2020, when an engineered election handed over the parliament to hardliner elements mostly connected with the Revolutionary Guard.
They were the ones who in December 2020 voted for high levels of uranium enrichment, bringing Iran very close to a nuclear threshold state. They also refused direct talks with the United States in the long and fruitless negotiations in Vienna since April 2021.
The current mobilization and unity among diaspora Iranians in Europe, Canada, the United States, Australia and elsewhere, pose a challenge to Western governments who are suddenly faced with their own citizens of Iranian descent demanding stronger policies toward the Islamic Republic.
A case in point was a tweet by US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley on Sunday who praised Iranian marchers in Washington DC and Los Angeles, but then said that demonstrators are asking “their government to respect their dignity and human rights.”
More than 2,500 people responded to his tweet mostly challenging his formulation that Iranians simply want respect from their government. They said that Iranians reject the current regime, not that they are asking for a change of behavior by the authoritarian system. There were as many critical comments as ‘Likes’ that Malley’s tweet received. Some even asked for his resignation as a Biden official who in their perception is not sympathetic to what most Iranians want.
American Iranian activist and women’s rights advocate Masih Alinejad tweeted on Sunday, saying it is time for Malley to be replaced.
An Instagram post by Iran International on Sunday asking the public what they think about Malley’s tweet elicited almost 7,000 comments, almost all critical of the US envoy.
The criticism of Malley goes back to his role as an architect of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and the lead negotiator to restore that accord in the Biden Administration; a step that would provide tens of billions of dollars to the clerical regime, giving it the means to suppress protests and enrich its militant proxies in the region.
The activist segment of the Iranian American community has become self-assured and more determined to support the protesters inside the country. Wobbling by Democrats will cost them votes, as there is already a degree of skepticism about Jimmy Carter’s party seen as responsible for abandoning the Shah in 1978 and helping to bring the Islamic Republic to power.
European governments will also soon realize that there is a substantial Iranian voting bloc in Germany, Britain, Sweden and some other countries. Already, second and third generation Iranians are getting elected to public office in some European countries. Two young Iranian women became ministers in Sweden this month.
The rallies in support of protesters in Iran are giving the Iranian diaspora an organization and grassroots leaders who reject pro-regime lobbying groups they have come to discredit lately. Their role is most evident in Canada, where the government in October adopted sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard.