The Guardian view on Iranian protests: a team’s silence speaks volumes
On Monday, 11 men defied their leaders in a show of solidarity with protests which have been led by women, but have drawn support from across society. What began as a rejection of the compulsory hijab in Iran has become a collective expression of fury with the repressive regime. Not one member of the Iranian football team sang the national anthem when it was played before their World Cup match against England. Earlier, Ehsan Hajsafi, the Iranian captain, said bereaved families should know “that we are with them, we support them and we sympathise with them” and that “the conditions in our country are not right and our people are not happy”.
The players risked not fines, not a booking, but retribution from a vindictive state. In doing so, they joined other courageous athletes and stars, as well as hundreds of thousands of ordinary men and women who have taken to the streets in 155 cities. Celebrity offers limited protection: on Sunday, two prominent actors, Hengameh Ghaziani and Katayoun Riahi, were arrested for their “provocative” posts after removing their hijabs on social media.
More than two months after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, died in custody, detained by morality police for supposedly “inappropriate hijab”, a spokesperson for the UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, warned that this is a “critical” moment. He noted that more than 300 people have been killed already, across 25 of the country’s 31 provinces. A rights group says that at least 58 victims were children. Thousands have been arrested, and at least six sentenced to death in connection with the protests.
Even as Monday’s match took place, security forces were firing on protesters in the mainly Kurdish cities of Piranshahr and Javanrud, with a rights group reporting that seven died in the latter alone. Tehran’s vindictive reaction extends beyond its borders, with armed police deployed outside the Iran International television studios in London after the channel said two of its journalists had been threatened. Yet the ruthless reaction has not, so far, silenced calls for change, but inflamed them, with protesters demanding: “Death to the child-killing regime.” Last week, they set fire to the ancestral home of the Islamic republic’s founder, Ayatollah Khomeini.
Tehran blames foreign enemies for orchestrating the unrest, but its people know the truth. As the weeks pass, the protests are expanding in scope as well as geographically, with students striking, pupils walking out of schools, and supporters boycotting firms tied to the Revolutionary Guards. Yet while some businesses have closed in support of protesters, and some workers have reportedly gone on strike, there is not, as yet, any sign of the kind of widespread industrial action which helped to bring down the Shah in 1979 – partly, perhaps, because the government has hiked some wages and benefits.
Nor are there any signs of splits at the top, which might respond to growing pressure from the grassroots. Though its usual playbook is failing, the merciless logic of the regime, as well as the vested interests of the powerful, mean it is likely to continue escalating its response. But the fundamental contradiction between the priorities and beliefs of the hardliners in charge of the country, and the younger people under their suffocating, corrupt and incompetent rule, becomes more visible and more pronounced with every arrest, every beating and every death.