Revolution, protests, demonstrations etc. keep happening in almost every
country for different reasons, but when it comes to the Islamic country Iran,
the number of protest or the frequency of demonstrations
are really massive compared to other countries.
1979 Iranian revolution is a memorable incident
in the World history after which many more such
incident shook the nation such as Green movement
and 2009 Iranian Presidential election protests.
And now is this Iranian protests that led to
many demonstrations, protests, arrest and death.
Around 42,000 Iranians have participated in these protests while
as many as 1000 demonstrators and protestors have been arrested.
As of now almost 21 demonstrators have been
killed and it also includes two security forces.
The demonstrators have done many damages in this few days.
They have attacked the police stations, judiciary
building etc. and the protest is still on.
The demonstrations are still ongoing and people of Iran
have taken to the street to show their grievances.
They are not following any traditional hierarchy
nor do they have any leader of this protest.
But all of them are chanting the same slogan
which is to bring back the Pahlavi Monarchy.
They are raising their voice against the current supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
So, all they want is the deportation of Islamic republic
and reinstatement of the Monarchy that was ousted in 1979.
The protests have been started on 28th December in Mashhad which is the second largest
city of Iran by population and eventually the protest have been spread all over Iran.
More than 70 cities and town in Iran are involved
in this demonstrations now and it is to see
what can draw an end to this protests and who
will actually rule Iran if Islamic fall in real.
Reasons of the protests
The economic policy of the Iran government was not for the common people and
this is what sparked the Iranians to initiate the protests and demonstrations.
This is the main reason that raged anger in the people and as
the demonstrations started, the scope too started expanding.
Even though economic policy is the main reason
of Iranian 2017-2018 protests, later on people
expressed their anger against the Supreme Leader
Ali Khamenei and the theoretical regime of Iran.
The Iranian Government enhanced the food price at a great rate
suddenly and this is what sparked anger among the citizens.
They took to the street on 28th December to initiate the first demonstration.
Rouhani’s hard line opponent instigated this protests.
The protests soon spread out from cities to cities and
this suddenly changed the main moto of the protests.
The protestors chanted their voice against the entire ruling
party and the main slogan was that ‘death to the dictator’.
The main protestors
While all kind of people took part in this Iran protest
but they can be mainly categorized into two groups.
One is the disaffected millennial and the working poor.
The disaffected millennial group are not urban
focused and most of them are under the age of 25.
They have good access to education and they belong to the middle class family.
They are tech savvy and stay updated with the recent trend.
The main reason that led them to this protest
is the uncertainty of future prospects.
They are hopeless about their future and feel hopeless.
Another group is the poor working men.
Their fight is for poor labour conditions, lack of labour rights and unpaid wages.
In November 2017, an earthquake in Iran killed almost 600 people
and the poorly built government housing was responsible for that.
This incident enhanced anger in public and this
protest is the way to express their anger.
Timeline of the protest
28th December
28th December, 2017, Thursday is the day when people of Iran
could not resist their anger and broke into the streets.
Mashhad is the second populated city in Iran where the protests were started first.
People across the street initiated the demonstrations.
Eventually the protests started spreading soon and
Tehran too witnessed the demonstrations on the same day.
Tehran is the capital of Iran.
Neyshabour, Kashmar, Yazd and Shahroud are the city
where protestors were seen across the streets.
Their slogan was against the Iran government, the dictator.
So they all were chanting that Death to the
dictator, death to Rouhani and Islamic Republic.
29th December
The protest and demonstrations became even massive on the next day as well.
Protestors kept protesting all through the day and demonstrators
were seen across the road whole day chanting the same slogan.
The protests spread to even more cities which include
Ahvaz, Qom, Rasht, Isfahan, Sari, Zahedan, and Qazvin.
Tehran, the capital of Iran too saw huge protests on the
next day and this led to the arrest of few people there.
30th December
30th December is the anniversary of 2009 pro-government rally
and this rally coincided with the Iran 2017-2018 protest.
Around 1200 cities and town saw this rally to happen
while more than 4000 people participated in the rally.
Anyways, the protests did not take a back seat rather it kept ongoing
at full fledge and protestors in Tehran became more terrible.
The students in the Tehran University took part in the
protests and they started chanting the anti-government slogan.
They also tore down all the posters of Ali Kheminei.
But the Revolutionary Guards started shooting during the night
protests in the Central Iran and this made the protestors to escalate.
Three protestors were killed on that day while many other were injured.
31st December
31st December was the fourth day of the demonstration.
The demonstrations were not lessening by even 1% rather
it was taking different form with each day crossing.
While the demonstrations were ongoing on different cities including Tehran,
the family members of the arrested people gathered at the Evin prison.
This day around 200 protestors were arrested while
10 people have been killed during a night slash.
The protestors attacked the police station and military bases.
Rouhani even though stated in the beginning that people have full rights to show
their protests but vandalism and violence should be avoided for better reason,
the people of Iran was least bothered about it.
1st - 3rd January
The Iranian could not enjoy the beginning of the year and
the protests and demonstrations continued till then.
On the New Year day there was no change in the protests
rather its frequency kept increasing day by day.
Tehran and all other cities of Iran witnessed the same situation.
Moreover the protest was taken to some another level with the death
of one Government security forces during the clashes on Monday night.
The death of govt security forces raged anger among the
government and they got involved in this fight full fledged.
On 2nd January total 9 deaths happened and most of
killed people were young Iranians, aged below 25 years.
Six people were killed from the protestors when they tried
to attack the police station and three were others.
Till 2nd January more than 500 people were arrested for this protest.
Intermittent protests started on 3rd January and
protests were going on several town of Iran.
The protestors raised their voice against the Supreme
Leader and they kept shouting that death to the dictator.
Mohammad Ali Jafari, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard
coup stated that this is the end of agitation
and he also dispatched a force to the province of
several town of Iran to handle the new sedition.
4th January - 5th January
On the 8th and 9th day of the protest, the protestor spread their demonstration
and cities such as Dezful, Ahvaz, Sanandaj, Bukan, Kamyaran and Rasht.
On 4th January the IRGC members were seen dismantling an
anti-government tower cell in Piransor, a city of Iran.
But three IRGC members were arrested and killed during this attack.
As per the IRGC members, the tower cell is filled with weapons and also
government assigned bomb there to murder numbers of innocent Iranians.
Several people came to the support of the protestors while the UN human rights
in Iran stated that the people of Iran have full right to express their protest
and the government too respect their view and the
internet connection crackdown should be put an end now.
7th January
However, on 7th January the picture of the protest was disappointing
as the unrest were defeated and it is said that Saudi Arabia, Israel,
monarchist and people of Mujahedin is responsible for this unrest.
Staged rallies were still there against the government and numbers of
videos showing the burning of government documents circulated everywhere.
As per a report, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former president who is
the biggest criticizer of the current government is been arrested
and kept under the surveillance of current supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
Many other countries including California participated in the
protest in their own country to show the support for Iranians.
The 1979 revolution cheered the Iranians definitely but they were betrayed as
well at the same time by the Islamic Republic which created anger on the people.
The anger was accumulating with days and finally people
expressed the grievances through this 2017-2018 protest.