As in 2009, in the face of the "green" movement against electoral fraud, or during the gigantic anti-government demonstrations of 2017 and 2019, against a backdrop of socio-economic frustrations and protests against rising prices, the Iranian authorities seem determined to kill in the bud any dispute that calls it into question.
Faced with a new wave of protest since September 16, the date of the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old young woman arrested three days earlier in Tehran for "wearing inappropriate clothes", the authorities have once again opted in favor of a murderous repressive strategy.
At least 76 dead in protests
An official report including demonstrators and police reports 41 dead in ten days of protests.
But this assessment could be heavier: the NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), based in Oslo, counted at least 76 deaths in the demonstrations in 14 provinces of the country.
Claiming to have obtained "videos and death certificates confirming live ammunition fired at demonstrators", the NGO specifies that "six women and four children" are among the dead.
On Sunday, the head of the judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejeï, threatened to show "no leniency" towards the demonstrators and called on the police to act "firmly" against "those who undermine to security".
In addition to the human toll, Tehran announced the arrest of 1,200 demonstrators, including women, throughout the territory.
Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Iranian authorities have arrested 18 journalists since the protests began.
Iranian riot police brutality on display #Mahsa_Amini #مهساامینی pic.twitter.com/FlzQVlAenV
— Golnaz Esfandiari (@GEsfandiari) September 24, 2022
"The country has already been the scene of several protest movements which have all been repressed in unprecedented violence, recalls Iranian activist Sussan Tahmasebi, director of Femena, an organization for the defense of women's rights in the Middle East and West Asia. With the current mobilization and unrest, we expect to see with [ultraconservative President] Ebrahim Raisi, an outburst of violence that will be much worse than the one that already shocked Iranians in 2017 and 2019, which will not happen. did not expect such levels of violence during the tenure of [moderate President] Hassan Rohani".
According to Amnesty International, 304 men, women and children were killed by Iranian security forces during protests in 2019. But the NGO believes the actual death toll is higher.
The Bassidjis, the spearhead of repression
"During the last major waves of protest, the Iranian regime has succeeded each time in overcoming mobilization thanks in particular to a well-honed repressive machine and a strategy that was exported to Iraq, to put an end to the 2019 uprising. ", analyzes Fereydoun Khavand, academic and journalist, specialist in Iran. It is in this sense that the forces of repression have been put in place, and this, in particular to quell the demonstrations".
This Iranian repressive strategy is based on several pillars, continues Fereydoun Khavand, including the Bassidjis, the regime's Islamist militias which had played a key role in the 2009 repression, or even on the Pasdarans, an elite corps of the army, who can also be engaged, in uniform or in civilian clothes.
>>Also read: "In Iran, women no longer let themselves be done" in the face of growing repression by the morality police
"The Bassidjis, which means the mobilized in Persian, are a paramilitary force in the service of the regime, like the Syrian chabihhas of Bashar al-Assad, who are called upon to act in particular circumstances, in particular when the power feels in danger, underlines Fereydoun Khavand. They are the ones who organize the counter-demonstrations or who launch outright assaults against the demonstrators in an often brutal and ferocious way as we can see on the videos circulating on social networks".
1-This video is from Sardasht, apparently tonight.
Several gunshots can be heard in the video, and the security forces are armed with various types of weapons.#IranProtests pic.twitter.com/QONdfD1F7q
— ERSHAD ALIJANI (@ErshadAlijani) September 26, 2022
Many videos posted on the networks in recent days by Iranians show women burning their veils, demonstrators tearing down effigies of the leaders of the Islamic Republic, but also security forces firing on the crowd.
A conspiratorial discourse to mobilize its militant base
According to Fereydoun Khavand, the regime can also count on its own social base by playing on the revolutionary fiber.
At the call of the authorities, demonstrations have taken place in recent days in several Iranian cities, including Tehran, in favor of the government and the Islamic veil, more than ever questioned after the death of Mahsa Amini.
"This base is certainly no longer as important as at the beginning of the 1979 revolution, but it remains a traditionalist force very attached to the religious values of the Islamic Republic, explains the specialist in international relations. In order to mobilize it, the regime uses a particular language that speaks to this base hostile to any change".
In particular by evoking, as during each major mobilization of the Iranians, a plot fomented abroad against the Islamic Republic, in particular in Washington, the sworn enemy of Tehran, or by accusing the demonstrators of collaborators and traitors.
"Attempts by the United States to violate Iran's sovereignty over the issue of protests sparked by the death of a woman in police custody will not go unanswered," Iran's Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
"In the field of conspiracy, which, it should be emphasized, is very widespread in the Middle East, the Islamic Republic has reached very high levels, with its traditional defendants, the United States and Israel, to which we must now add the countries Arab neighbors like Saudi Arabia and the millions of Iranians based abroad who are also accused of constantly seeking to overthrow the Islamic Republic", decrypts Fereydoun Khavand.
"This type of conspiratorial discourse, he continues, is mainly intended to mobilize the military force and the social base of the regime, thus victimizing itself, explaining that the difficulties encountered by the Islamic Republic are the result of a conspiracy that has always existed against Islam and Shiism".
A repression behind closed doors?
To quickly overcome the current mobilization, the Iranian government is seeking to disconnect the country from the rest of the world, by imposing drastic restrictions on an Internet already under high surveillance.
"By decision of the authorities, it is no longer possible to access Instagram in Iran since last night (Wednesday) and access to WhatsApp is also disrupted," the Fars news agency reported on September 22.
She even specified that the measure was taken because of “the actions carried out by counter-revolutionaries against national security via these social networks”…
"The disruption of the Internet creates a climate of fear because we know that it leaves a free hand for security officials to commit violence in a kind of behind closed doors," says Sussan Tahmasebi.
In 2019, a similar restriction had already been imposed on the Internet to block Internet users from sharing videos of the unrest.
"By attacking the Internet, the interest of the regime is twofold since it is a question of preventing not only that the Iranians alert the rest of the world in real time of the situation in the country, but also that information does not reach Iranians since several very influential media in Iran, such as Radio Farda, whose headquarters are in Prague or the Iran International channel, the most watched in Iran, are broadcast from abroad via the Internet", indicates Fereydoun Khavand.
Starlink will ask for an exemption to Iranian sanctions in this regard
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 19, 2022
In response, Washington announced on September 23 the lifting of certain trade bans with Iran, in order to allow technology companies to provide platforms and services allowing Iranians to access the Internet.
A few days earlier, the owner of SpaceX, Elon Musk, declared that he intended to request an exemption from the sanctions against Iran from the American administration in order to offer internet connection services there via his constellation of satellites. Starlink.
"How long could he last like this?"
So far, the ultra-repressive strategy of the Iranian government has enabled it to withstand the great waves of spontaneous demonstrations of anger, even if the latter are becoming more and more frequent.
"I doubt that this mobilization can create a real change, because unfortunately the authorities have never taken into account the demands of their citizens, whatever the way in which these are expressed, especially those of women, they do not have only very rarely backed down on any kind of law, points out Sussan Tahmasebi. Usually when there are protests, they refuse to do so because they see it as a sign of weakness, while 'in fact, it would be a sign of a government that listens to its own people'.
If the reasons for the anger persist, they will provoke new cycles of demonstrations which in the long run will weaken the foundations of the regime, explains Fereydoun Khavand, who recalls that it is the fruit of an Islamic revolution accompanied by slogans promising justice, prosperity and democracy after the fall of the Shah of Iran.
"Today the Iranians can only see that the current regime commits unjustifiable atrocities at every popular protest, that corruption is as widespread as under the Pahlavi monarchy and that inequalities and social discrimination remain glaring, he concludes. However, the great waves of demonstrations are certainly always repressed, but each of them has contributed to significantly weakening the power and the Shiite clergy, who benefited from a solid base and the support of part of the population. when could he last like this?"
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