BEHIND THE NEW IRAN REVOLUTION

Roozbeh Mirebrahimi is an Iranian-American journalist living in New York City. He is currently the editor-in-chief of the Persian-language publication Iran in the World. Here, he discusses the recent unrest that has roiled his homeland, leading to the deaths of 21 people and the arrests of 450 protesters. ROOZBEH MIREBRAHIMI

I’VE lived in New York City for 12 years, and this is the second time I’ve watched from afar as protests erupted in Iran.

The first was in the wake of the 2009 presidential election, when millions of Iranians demonstrated in the streets, giving birth to the Green Movement.

And now we’ve witnessed nearly a week of protests all around Iran, the country where I was born and raised and where all of my family and friends still live.

On the second day of the recent rallies, a former colleague from Iran sent me a short clip of people in a small city in northern Iran chanting, “Death to Khamenei” — meaning Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader.

In another clip, protesters chanted “Leave Syria alone, and think about our life.”

“What is going on Roozbeh!” my colleague asked in wonder. “It has been a long time that I have ever seen this kind of anger. They don’t care how the police will react.”

A friend in another city said these protests feel different than the ones before.

“People are angry about mismanagement and corruption,” he said. “Every time the president appears on TV, he describes our country as a paradise, where everything is fine and everyone is happy.”

But many people are without jobs — and the price of basic goods has increased dramatically. For instance, the price of eggs, milk, potatoes and rice recently skyrocketed by up to 50 percent. Same goes with gas, the price of which is also expected to rise by 50 percent.

My friend said he knows someone working for a company under government control who hasn’t received his full salary for the last three months. Many Iranians have been left wondering how to meet the basic needs of their families.

Sitting here in New York and watching your friends, family members and former colleagues face suppression and neglect from authorities is one of the hardest ex- periences that an immigrant can face.

Sometimes, you feel useless; sometimes, you want to be there next to your friends in the streets of Tehran; and sometimes, you just want to close your eyes and hope for a great outcome from these hardships people are enduring.

IRANIANS have always been looking for change. Change that will bring them a better life, and change that will guarantee their fundamental human rights.

But what we are seeing in Iran these days is different from the previous uprising in 2009, which involved mostly middle-class protesters in Tehran. I’d say it’s closer to what went on in the few weeks before the Islamic revolution of 1979.

That said, the current uprising doesn’t have a leader. It started spontaneously in the city of Mashhad, in northeast Iran, and spread across the country very quickly.

After a week of protests, we’ve seen small and large demonstrations in more than 40 cities in Iran, which wasn’t the case in the 2009 uprising.

Also, from Day One, these protests targeted the regime and the supreme leader who controls Iran. In 2009, it took more than a week before the slogan “death to dictator” was trotted out at demonstrations.

There are three key things that happened in 2017 that created the situation we’re now in.

First, in May 2017, the Iranians elected President Hassan Rouhani to a second term, with 24 million votes.

That vote sent a clear message as to what kind of society Iranians want. Rouhani promised more personal freedom and to support women’s rights. He also pledged to improve access to social media and cut off the Revolutionary Guard Corps — an agency that’s loyal to the supreme leader and not the nation — from the country’s economy.

But when the president chose his new Cabinet over the summer, he didn’t meet his supporters’ expectations — especially when he didn’t make any women ministers, as he had promised.

Rouhani’s actions over the summer and fall let down his supporters, and it soon became evident people felt betrayed.

Then, just a few weeks ago, the government published a budget proposal for the new year.

It was the first time the public paid attention to the details of the

Sitting here in New York and watching your friends, family members and former colleagues face suppression and neglect from authorities is one of the hardest experiences that an immigrant can face. — Roozbeh Mirebrahimi