Proteste im Iran die größten seit 2009

Die unvermindert andauernden Proteste im Iran sind nicht nur inzwischen die größten seit 2009 und haben alle Regionen des Landes erreicht, die Demonsttanten sind auch besser organisiert und stellen das ganze Ssytem in Frage. Schon sprechen die ersten Stimmen von einer Revolution, die unter dem Slofan "Frau, Freiheit, Leben" begonnen hat.

Im Guardian ist diese Zusammenfassung der Ereignisse erschienen:

Up to 35 people have been killed during clashes with security forces, according to Iran. Iranian officials say five security personnel have also died, trying to quell outrage surrounding the death of Mahsa Amini, 22. But activists say the death toll is at least 50 and likely to be even higher.

An enforcer of fundamentalist views throughout his career, Raisi has been regarded as an unlikely figure to quell Iran’s restive streets, or to cede to demands for more civil freedoms.

His defiance is likely to increase the likelihood of a further escalation in towns and cities where demonstrators have been increasingly taking the fight to security forces in scenes rarely seen in Iran.

The demonstrations have evoked images of an anti-government protest in 2009, known as the green revolution, that followed contentious presidential elections and marked the last time citizens faced off against security forces on a large scale.

“The main difference between the current protest compared to the green movement in 2009 is that now people are fighting back; they are not afraid of the brutal regime,” said Sima Sabet, an Iranian journalist and presenter on the Iran International TV station.

“Demonstrators are now burning ambulances because the government is using ambulances to move their security forces not to rescue people. The protesters are now using different tactics; they move between all cities and make it hard for security forces to control all locations.”

Firuzeh Mahmoudi, executive director of human rights NGO United for Iran, said the recent unrest followed months of Iranians being prepared to hold smaller protests on an array of issues: “The uprising in 2009 in some ways was more expansive in certain cities,” she said. “We had millions of people protesting in certain cities during the biggest day of that protest. It was the biggest thing since the [1979] revolution. They did not see it coming and were very surprised.

“Now we’re seeing not only big cities, but smaller cities that we’ve never seen before. We’re now also seeing unprecedented ways in which people are showing up, in the messaging and the boldness. Things are a lot more unified.”

Mahmoudi said chants heard at rallies, such as “We’ll support our sisters and women, life, liberty”, had been heard around the country.

“This is unprecedented for us. We have never seen women take their hijab off in mass like this. Burning down the police centres, running after their cars, burning down the pictures of [supreme leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei,” she said.

Some demonstrations appear to have at least in part been organised, with a restive urban youth and others opposed to strict societal rules, including on how women conduct themselves, and what they wear, coalescing around the death of Amini, who was accosted by morality police in Tehran for refusing to wear a hijab.

Drawing on lessons learned over the past decade in anti-government uprisings elsewhere in the Middle East, smartphones have been used as organising tools, with messages and places of demonstrations widely circulated, despite widespread cuts to the country’s internet.

“They have tactics about how to send their videos outside of Iran despite the cut-off of the internet,” said Sabet. “For the first time now in Iran women are burning their hijabs with the support of men.”