Historians who study Iran, human rights activists, political analysts, U.S. officials and Iranians on the ground all say the protests represent a potentially revolutionary moment, and that Iranian citizens are increasingly ready to risk their lives for the cause.Oct. 29, 2022, 12:05 PM UTCEvery night in Tehran, when the clock strikes nine, Iranians take to apartment rooftops and windows, and their voices echo across the city.
“Every protest we’ve seen before has been limited geographically, or social-economically or related to a particular grievance,” said Hadi Ghaemi of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran. The protest are often smaller scale than the mass demonstrations of the past in major cities, but they are more numerous and dispersed across rural as well as urban areas. The security forces have to put down constant pockets of defiance in well-organized neighborhoods where the locals know where to hide and how to outmaneuver the police, human rights groups and Iranians said.
The regime has survived street protests before, by using violence, imprisonment and censorship to silence dissent. And the government still retains support among a significant section of the population, especially those with ties to the state’s bureaucracy. The official said that “you have an erosion of the legitimacy of the system, that’s basically hanging on by threats of force.”Roya Hakakian, an Iranian-American writer who recently met with Biden administration officials along with other activists, said the protests were the start of a revolution “about democracy in its purest form — the desire for a normal life.”
Yes