And for some more detail on what happened - plainclothes security forces (basij) surrounded students/professors at the university, have fired on them (rubber and real bullets?) have many of them trapped.
This is totally incorrect. Student basij is actually consists of students, and the clash was mostly between the students.
The shooting claim is also completely false. Some of the students were arrested because of rioting.
How many Basij attend Sharif again? Zero, right? So not a "student vs student". Also Sharif students carry books, basij chains, sticks, and other weapons.
+I can start posting letters of professors demanding release of abducted -- "arrested" implies a sort of civilized police behavior, which is not applicable here -- students.
> Some of the students were arrested because of rioting.
Save it for the trials. In fact, if I were a beneficiary of "Islamic Republic" I would pray that there will be trials.
This is totally BS. Armed to the teeth security forces are slaughtering empty handed students and you say this is students vs students? I don't know what to say. Just wow
Maybe basij in theory was meant to be representative, in practice at best representative of 10% of students in a technical university. Maybe even 15 some place. But at some building at sharif, easier to detect gravitational waves.
To give benefit of the doubt, one may attend one of the social science universities focused on religious studies, where basij is more representative or actually is, and extend this to sharif. But those universities are not representative of all universities, even assuming they don’t have alternative criteria for admission. I am not sure but I think they do.
It’s far easier to communicate to conservatives and seculars and everyone really that this disturbance is backed by foreign states (as it is their official public policy), than to make an inaccurate claim that alienates one’s cause, whatever that is. If religion to protect one’s country, could be reason to be moderate.
“The wife of a faculty member at the university in Iran watched her husband stand between the students & police. He was captured & told he was guilty of betraying Islamic law. He was beaten & shot dead as his wife hid in a car & watched.”
Can you imagine the US government sending armed guerrilla forces to Boston to surround Harvard and MIT and start killing students? Well, that is exactly what is going on in Tehran, Iran as I tweet this. The world media seems to be deaf and blind!!
#دانشگاه_شریف
#مهسا_امینی
> Can you imagine the US government sending armed guerrilla forces to Boston to surround Harvard and MIT and start killing students?
There were some dark times during the Trump administration when unmarked federal agents were sent to squash protests[1]. And of course long before that was Kent State[2].
So sadly the U.S. isn't as far removed from your hypothetical as I'd wish.
Federal agents are allowed to arrest anyone on the street if they have probable cause to suspect a violation of federal law. They aren't required to wear uniforms or coordinate with local officials. What's dystopian about that?
While I would be very happy to see the Iranian Islamic regime collapse, the current protests are pretty weak compared to the past.
The oil price protests of 2019 reached higher destruction within two days than the whole current protests combined. They actually temporarily lost control of cities.
They need something stronger to collapse their dictatorship. They probably need a real opposition leader. And more organized actions than sporadic protests. I don't see the current protests going anywhere.
I'm not sure why are the downvotes?
Truth is, getting crashed economically is almost always better protest motivation than women rights. Protests that threaten regimes are usually triggering desperate men. You're not getting regime change from hijab protests where economic desperation protests of bigger magnitudes failed.
This is not true. These protests are unique because:
1. For the first time, people are also willing to be violent against the regime.
2. This is more geographically distributed than previous ones.
3. It's distributed among all classes now.
4. It has been going the longest, despite the violence of the regime.
I think this is definitely the first time since the Green Movement that the regime is really sensing existential threats.
One thing to people watching the news:
This is probably the biggest woman's rights movement in middle east history (or the world). I don't think Woman fought this hard for their freedoms anytime (Could be wrong though). Also probably the biggest secular movement in ME history.
Source: Iranian, used to be part of the green movement, nowadays living in the US only with friends and family in Iran.
I was following both protests. The Iranian regime is well trained at oppressing protests.
1. is factually incorrect. 2019 had them burning basij buildings.
2. also factually incorrect.
2019 as geographically spread as this one.
3. Incorrect. It's middle class this time. 2019 were lower class.
4. Also incorrect. At this point I suspect this is the first protest in Iran you ever noticed and you're just making stuff up.
I agree that it's probably the biggest women rights protest in history. But historically, woman rights protests never ever led to regime change. You need desperate men and violence.
As far as I am aware, most successful movements of this sort win when security forces are no longer willing to fire on them because the crowd includes some of their relatives and friends.
It's easy to convince security forces to return fire, but more difficult to convince them to fire on unarmed civilians.
The primary method for a regime to keep its security forces in line is to ensure their extended families are well-off (this is easier to do if you draw them from a single, government-privileged ethic group).
One is kidding himself if he believes this is about "women's rights". The fact of the matter is that any excuse will be used to destabilize Iran. I'm not a fan of their regime, but if one for a second believes that certain 3 letter agencies (or 6 letter agencies starting with M) don't have boots on the ground there at this very moment, I've got a bridge to sell you.
> They need something stronger to collapse their dictatorship. They probably need a real opposition leader.
You know, since WW2, that has been a common phrase in US politics. No one has ever benefitted from it unless they willingly become sterilized and toothless - content with being a protectorate of the US and not a soverign state with its own destiny.
If Iran has issues, the iranian people must sort it out, and lead themselves into they state they want. Even if they must die trying to do so.
If you weren't aware of what's going on in Iran right now. Here's my TL;DR:
* Iran's "morality police" beat a woman to death for improperly wearing a head scarf.
* This has triggered a major uprising throughout the country - people are sick and tired of being oppressed by the regime there.
* Which has led to widespread protests, with security forces responding with extreme force - mowing down protesters with assault weapons, using ambulances to sneak up on & capture protesters, using young kids as security forces, and a lot more. 100s / probably 1000s dead (hard to confirm). Steadily rising.
* The regime has also cut off most internet access, which has made it extremely challenging for people to get word out
The people of Iran could really use help building awareness of this, and getting some international pressure put on the regime that's in charge.
Is the islamist regime responsive to international pressure? I hope the protesters succeed, but I think the Iranian people are going to have to work this one out by themselves.
I have not seen verification of this claim. There are some recorded incidents of officers using their sidearms, and firing into the ground/air. There is confirmation of at least a few protestors shot but not "being mowed down".
The vast majority of killed or injured protestors have been from riot rounds.
I wonder what can be done. Will the situation be better If western countries start sending weapons to opposition and Iran becomes like Syria? I personally would love to see the Islamic government get abolished and replaced by a democratic freedom-loving liberal government. However the plans in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria didn't go well to this day.
Decoding the Pentagon’s online war against Iran
From a click of a button in the US to violence on the streets of Tehran, the latest protests in Iran are being engineered and provoked from outside
https://thecradle.co/Article/analysis/16372
Entire recent generations of Iranians are responsible for this. What did they expect when they voted for an Islamic republic? Sunshine lollipops and rainbows?
This is quite a distorted retelling of history. Nobody voted for the IR. There was a very powerful leftist movement (en vogue at the time, thanks in part to the USSR) that sought to remove the pro-west Shah and his perceived corruption. Sure there were grievances, like stifling of any political dissent by the secret police.
Ultimately the movement was co-opted by fundamentalists as the leftists had gathered support from various groups but without clear ideas of what would replace the monarchy. And thus Khomeini returned from exile in France to claim the throne, turban rather than crown, and the rest is, as they say, history.
Comprehensive account of what happened by the 'Islamic Association of Sharif Technical University' (@AnjomanSUT) [1], a student body organization (in Persian so machine translate as needed):
"We utter the prayers for the dead ("fatiha") for this university, this ministry of education, and this regime."
~
one aside from all this (has nothing to do with Iran but everything to do with geeks, technology, and power): the report above says that the day before the security services installed new surveillance equipment all around the university. And as soon as the protests (entirely peaceful at that point) started, they grabbed 3 specific students. It is tragically ironic that people just like the students in Sharif had designed and built these systems for the people who enjoy lording it over others, which is now being used against them..
https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/xtwnvj/iran_says...
And for some more detail on what happened - plainclothes security forces (basij) surrounded students/professors at the university, have fired on them (rubber and real bullets?) have many of them trapped.
"Iranian forces shoot at protesting students, lay siege to university" - https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/xtyias/iranian_f...