More than 180 people have reportedly been killed in Iran’s crackdown since protests ravaged the country following the death of an Iranian Kurdish woman; Analysts say the protests are expected to intensify.
The protests spread to more than 50 cities in the month following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s strict hijab rules. He died while in police custody.
“Anti-government protests are expected to remain a feature of the [Iranian] political landscape and increase in frequency, scale and violence as the economic situation worsens and social restrictions tighten,” said Pat Thaker, editorial director of The Economist’s Intelligence Unit for the Middle East and Africa.
The protests will be met with force and increase the Islamic Republic’s reliance on Iran’s elite armed forces, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, he told CNBC.
Iran’s ideal leader, Ayatollah Khameinei, broke his silence last week and the protests turned into “riots. “He also blamed the United States and Israel in his first public comments since the unrest.
Since the beginning of the protests, chants of “woman, life, freedom” echo in the streets.
Videos showing women burning their headscarves, cutting their hair and crowds shouting “death to the dictator” amid burning cars have flooded social media, despite the Iranian government’s intermittent shutdown of the website.
“It was triggered through a violent act against a woman, so it started as a motion to revive women’s rights and freedom,” Ramin Forouzandeh, a newly founded Iranian in Toronto, told CNBC.
While the existing protests differ from previous ones because of their freedom, women’s rights, and the call to end the Islamic Republic’s regime, Iran has a history of protests sparked by socioeconomic and political issues, such as the 2019 protests. And in 2017, when other people took to the streets in the face of emerging inflation and economic difficulties.
“For years, we have seen protests against economic grievances. These have been driven primarily by ordinary elegance and low intermediate elegance,” said Suzanne Maloney, deputy director of the Brookings Institution’s foreign policy program.
She said that beyond periods of unrest they have accumulated in the fervor noted in existing protests and that they may “result in something that will be a very persistent and complicated challenge for the Islamic Republic. “
Inflation in Iran is expected to remain above 30%, according to the World Bank.
The economic turmoil is compounded by skyrocketing unemployment by about 10 and public debt by 40 Arrays according to International Monetary Fund statistics.
The diminishing likelihood of a successful nuclear deal with Iran may also mean that economic sanctions will continue to weigh on the country’s economy.
“There is no doubt that the existing tensions are underlying issues that go beyond the forced hijab,” said Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, an economics professor at Virginia Tech.
“Young Iranians are frustrated by decades of economic mismanagement coupled with the effect of foreign sanctions and hold Iran’s leaders accountable for any of those problems,” said Sanam Vakil, deputy director and senior fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
“There is no economic justice and no prospect of hope for the future, and this is causing anger that is spreading violently in the streets,” Vakil said.
What makes those economic situations harder for young people to cope with is that they are “more educated” than their older counterparts, who dictate the rules and run the country, according to Salehi-Isfahani.
“[The] average number of years of education for those under 40 is 11, compared to 6 for older Iranians. But education has not helped other young people get a better solution in the job market,” he said in an email.
Iran’s adult literacy rate is 86. 9 percent in 2022, up from 65 percent in 1991, two years after Khamenei came to power. Iran’s youth unemployment rate hovers around 27% in 2021.
The ongoing social movement has the capacity to grow and persist even in the face of attempted repression, but it will turn into a civil war, Maloney said.
“This is a turning point for the Islamic Republic. The social movement we see today has the ability to grow and continue,” he said.
Although Iranians are more willing than before to confront security forces more, Maloney has expressed doubts about the prospect of regime change.
“It is a theocracy, it has a monopoly on the levers of power. And it has survived significant turmoil for the past 43 years,” Maloney said, mentioning Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s 1980 invasion beyond what it should. Challenges of Covid-19.
“So it’s a regime with a sure force of resistance. “
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