Iran’s protests are not an angry outburst, but the result of generations of trauma

NB: Iran’s brutal theocracy is killing and maiming hundreds of protestors for demanding freedom from the notorious band of thugs called the morality police. Shame on the Ayatollahs. All democratic minded people the world over should support the Iranian peoples struggle for democracy. DS

Nasrin Parvaz

Detail from a painting by Nasrin Parvaz, Women in Iran 2022.

Women, life, freedom. These words have become the rallying cry for protest that has erupted in the wake of the murder of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iran’s feared morality police. They are shaking the Iranian regime to its core.

Unlike past movements, this uprising cuts across generations and social classes. For young Iranian women, Amini’s death ignited an explosion of pent-up fury at the regime’s suppression of women’s rights. For older activists like me, it has reopened the scars from previous uprisings and breathed new life into the decades-long struggle for freedom.

Demonstrations began in Tehran on 16 September soon after news of Mahsa’s killing broke. Within hours, women appeared in the streets, burning their hijabs and calling for justice. Within days, the protests spread. In towns and cities across Iran, schoolchildren have abandoned their classrooms to join the masses thronging the junctions and blocking streets.

The regime’s violent response has been brutal. Killings of protesters began immediately and hundreds have already lost their lives. Last Friday in the south-east city of Zahedan, as many as 91 people were killed when state forces opened fire, including five children. Doctors certified that they had been shot from behind. Despite the regime shutting down the internet across the country, videos of police violence continue to leak out, further fueling public rage….

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/07/iran-protests-angry-trauma-uprising-struggle-freedom