The Iran protest continues across the country. The unrest was sparked by the death of 22 year old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police. Her crime: Strands of hair showing because of a loose hijab. That was enough for the country’s morality police to beat her to death. Her death quickly grabbed the world’s attention.
Q3 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more
The more the Islamic Republic tries to suppress the protests, the more they pop up. It’s like a bad game of Whac-a-Mole. Each time you kill a protestor, they multiply. Iran is blaming the White House and the Zionist regime for the protests. I’m not sure anyone is buying that. Iran has enough problems on its own that it doesn’t need outside influence to destabilize it.
The protests first focused on the strict Islamic dress code for women but quickly grew into calls for the downfall of Iran’s theocracy itself. As I’m writing this, it’s the 50th day since her death and protests are not slowing down. What is unique about today’s protests is that they have united nearly every section of society. Normally the regime stages counter-demonstration. This time, it’s not happening.
Protesting in Iran requires courage. The protestors, the majority women, face getting arrested, shot, and tortured. According to Reuters, they estimate 356 people die protesting. It’s fascinating what they are doing. They risk death for a cause that’s greater than them.
Mahsa Amini is not the first woman to die at the hands of the morality police. But her death lit a spark. (Just like George Floyd wasn’t the first black man to get killed by the cops, for some reason, most likely the graphic video, led to unrest and demand for change and justice.) In 2003, Zahra Kazemi was an Iranian-Canadian photographer that died after being tortured by Iranian authorities. I remember how it was a big deal and relations between Canada and Iran deteriorated afterward.
We have seen episodes of protests in Iran in the past, notably in 2009 (rigged election) and 2019 (high gas prices), and shooting protestors put an end to them. But this feels different. This is one of the most important events in Iran in more than four decades and suggests this could be a turning point for the country’s future. The protests have become one of the most serious threats to Iran’s ruling clerics since the 1979 Islamic Revolution (which was also corrupt and brutal).
