Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Prepares for New Protests as the Anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s Murder Approaches

Eleven months ago, nationwide protests rocked the Islamic Republic of Iran and shook the Velayat-e Faqih1 ruling system that places clerical rule over the state. The protests ignited on September 16, 2022, after the killing of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman from Saqqez. Amini (Jina) was visiting Tehran when Iran’s morality police detained her for breaching the country’s mandatory headscarf law. 

She was severely beaten and days later died in police custody. Following her killing, demonstrations broke out in Iran’s Kurdish northwest region, known to Kurds as Rojhalet. Other oppressed minorities in the Baluchistan and Sistan regions joined in, and soon after, like wildfire, Iran was rocked by substantial nationwide protests, unleashing a massive show of opposition to Iran’s authoritarian clerical rule. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets demanding justice for Amini and calling for the regime’s overthrow.

Many of Iran’s observers predicted the regime’s eventual demise due to the Amini uprising’s nature. The protests were different from previous protests in Iran, said Yassamine Mather, editor of the UK academic journal Critique and an expert in Iranian politics, “In 2009, the majority of the protesters were from the middle class. 

In 2022, protesters were from the working classes and lower sections of the middle classes. This means we are seeing larger numbers involved in the protests, and the demonstrators are younger and braver than in 2009. They don’t seem deterred by attacks from the security forces.”2

The Amini uprising was broad-based and inclusive, crossing ethnic and class lines. Persians from all walks of life came out alongside Iran’s non-Persian national and ethnic minorities: the Kurds, Baluchi, and Ahvazi chanted “Death to the Dictator” and “Death to the Oppressor,” in reference to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

 In a rare show of defiance, protesters targeted symbols of the clergy of Velayat-e Faqih; they tore down portraits of Khamenei and, in Khamenei’s birthplace in the Shia holy city of Mashhad, they even set his statue on fire. Other protesters marched toward the house (now a museum) of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they set the house on fire.3 The ruling leadership faced its biggest survival challenge for the first time in more than 44 years since the cleric-led regime took power in Iran in 1979.

Within hours of the first protest, at Amini’s funeral in Saqqez, Kurdistan, Iran’s ruthless Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was deployed to all cities and towns across Iran. Hundreds of protesters were shot dead, thousands were injured, and more than 30,000 thousands were detained while awaiting sham trials. On December 8, 2022, Mohsen Shekari, 22 years old, was the first protester executed by public hanging.

Germany’s foreign minister condemned the killing and said the government of Iran’s “inhumanity knows no bounds.4“ Soon afterward, 100s of protesters were sentenced to death due to the uprising. The Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) estimated that 537 protesters, including many children, were killed in IRGC’s brutal crackdown.5 However, the actual death toll is believed to be much higher. 

An Amnesty International 48-page report, titled “Iran: Killings of Children during Youthful Anti-Establishment Protests,” released on December 9, 2022, gave a detailed account of a cruel campaign of intimidation against grieving families. The regime withheld the bodies of murdered loved ones unless their families committed to writing to grant media interviews in which they give false accounts absolving the government of any responsibility. 

The regime also placed restrictions on burials, such as preventing funeral ceremonies, forcing families to bury loved ones in remote places, or forbidding sharing images of their murdered relatives on social media. Those who did not abide by the regime’s restrictions were subjected to arbitrary arrests, torture, and rape.6

Dr. Sanam Vakil, the Deputy Director and Senior Research Fellow at the Chatham House think-tank wrote after the nationwide protests broke out, and despite the protests’ magnitude, she did not think the protests posed an existential threat to the regime because the system in Iran has a monopoly of force.

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