Iran’s Protests 40 Days On

Introduction

Iranians took to the streets in mid-September after Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, was arrested by the country’s “morality police” for allegedly wearing her veil incorrectly, dying shortly thereafter. Women have been at the forefront of protests which have swept the country over the last month, demanding freedom, dignity and an end to laws imposing a mandatory headscarf, but also expressing broad frustration with Iran’s political system and economic failures. This brief explores the origin of women’s discontent and offers an analysis of how the protests may ultimately play out.

Background and Political Context

The veil[1] has been used throughout different political periods in Iran’s history as a symbol of resistance by protestors, and also a tool for state-building by elites. In the 1930s, Reza Shah Pahlavi — who was initially supported by the British — banned women’s wearing of the veil as part of his modernization project, associating the veil with backwardness. In contrast, during the Iranian revolution of 1979, the veil was donned by women protestors — not all of whom were religious — in opposition to Western influence and to demonstrate solidarity among members of the anti-regime movement.[2]

While the effort to overthrow the Shah cut across demographics — including both secular and religious women — the immediate aftermath of the revolution was a mini-civil war that lasted for several years in which various factions — leftists, nationalists and Islamists — vied for power.[3] Once religious clerics established and consolidated a new regime, they instituted radical political and social changes that marginalized women, including rigid applications of Islamic law to areas of personal status and crime, through compulsory veiling, by severely limiting reproductive rights, and by minimizing women’s access to certain sectors of employment.[4]

Since that time, women’s bodies have continued to symbolize the tensions between Islamic and modernist forces in Iran, as well as between regime supporters and those who oppose it.[5] In 2017, women protested by publicly unveiling in Tehran, all of whom were arrested and treated aggressively by police.[6] While some protests have focused specifically on issues impacting women, women also participated in the broad protests in 2009 against election fraud. Vote rigging in 2009 was somewhat concealed, but measures to rig the election were highly visible in 2021, leading to low voter turnout (below 50%, compared to 70% in the previous 2017 election) and general disillusionment with the political system.[7] Coupled with economic woes exacerbated by U.S. sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic, Iran was primed for widescale discontent.

Women-led Protests

On September 13, 2022, Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, was detained outside a metro station in Tehran by Iran’s so-called “morality police” (Gasht-e Ershad, or Guidance Patrols) for allegedly wearing her headscarf improperly.[8] Enforcement of Iran’s restrictions on women’s dress has varied with different administrations, but current President Ebrahim Raisi issued a directive on July 5, 2022 that aimed to punitively ensure compliance.[9] Amini was taken to a police station and was later found by doctors outside a hospital, where she went into a coma and died two days later.[10] While Iranian state TV claimed that Amini had underlying health conditions and suffered a heart attack — releasing CCTV footage of Amini collapsing in the police station — her family refuted this account and accused state authorities of beating her and doctoring the story, although her father was later forced to approve the state’s narrative.[11]

Amini’s death was the spark for the large-scale anti-government protests we have witnessed over the last six weeks. Led by women but supported by men, protests began in the days following Amini’s death and have spread to more than 100 cities across the country. Women protestors have engaged in powerful public acts including unveiling, setting their headscarves on fire, and cutting their hair in public, a symbolic gesture drawn from Persian mythology.[12] Prominent chants have included “women, life, freedom,” which is borrowed from the Kurdish Freedom Movement led by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), as well as slogans directed at the regime: “Death to the dictator” and “Death to Khamenei.”[13] Protestors are also noticeably younger, with schoolgirls bravely marching, removing their headscarves, and — in some cases — confronting and chanting against members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.[14]

The regime’s response to ongoing protests has been brutal, with security forces attacking protestors with tear gas, batons and, in some cities, firing on them with live ammunition. A Norwegian-based nonprofit, Iran Human Rights, stated that 234 protesters, including 29 children, have been killed by security forces in crackdowns thus far,[15] though the real number is likely to be higher as international researchers and journalists have had difficulty confirming on-the-ground events after the regime cut off mobile internet connection across the country. Journalists in Iran have been detained, along with filmmakers, athletes, musicians and actors who have participated in or vocally backed the demonstrations.[16] On October 26, 2022, government forces attacked the mourners marking forty days since Mahsa Amini’s death in her hometown of Saghez, leading to clashes between police and protestors in the city’s center.[17]

Looking Ahead

Will Iran’s women-led protests amount to a revolution, or will the regime find a way to either appease or fully quash protestors? Drawing on the lessons of the Arab uprisings more than a decade ago, researchers have argued that several factors are necessary for protestors to successfully topple a regime.[18] The first is that a government must lose its legitimacy. Iranians are certainly disillusioned with both the political system and its ability to provide for citizens’ basic needs, in addition to women’s anger over social restrictions and discrimination. Second, protests must involve a wide cross-section of the country’s population. While more limited in its initial days, we have since seen Iranians of different generations as well as different classes and ethnic backgrounds join the movement. Third, outside powers must be unwilling to prop up the regime. Western countries have enacted further sanctions on Iran and issued statements of support to protestors, but Russia and China remain staunch allies of Iran. Finally, domestic military and economic elites must become alienated from the regime, and those with the capacity to inflict violence must choose to side with protestors. This is perhaps the largest hurdle to revolution. It is possible we could witness defections among Iran’s police or conscripted army — though there have not yet been reports of this occurring on any large scale — but defections among the country’s Revolutionary Guard or paramilitary Basij force are difficult to imagine, given how closely these institutions are tied to state power.

The Iranian regime’s willingness to use force against its own people indicates that the government may not be as unshakeable as it would like to appear. That this grassroots movement — started and led by women — has managed to sustain protests for more than a month even in the face of extreme violence shows not only bravery and fortitude but also demonstrates that previously unthinkable barriers may yet be broken.