{"id":238867,"date":"2021-04-30T08:48:15","date_gmt":"2021-04-30T13:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=238867"},"modified":"2023-02-01T04:57:18","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T03:57:18","slug":"protests-across-iran-reflect-public-desire-for-regime-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/iran-protests\/protests-across-iran-reflect-public-desire-for-regime-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Protests Across Iran Reflect Public Desire for Regime Change"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Iran,
Iran, 2017\u20132018 uprising<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There has been a number of protests and clashes between people and the regime\u2019s security forces across Iran in recent months. These protests, mostly due to economic grievances show Iranian society\u2019s restiveness.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, villagers in Aleshtar, Lorestan province clashed with security forces. Conflicts erupted as locals were bloody cracked down when they were protesting the cutting down of their walnut trees by government forces as part of a plan to seize their lands. Lorestan\u2019s attorney general admitted that several security forces have been wounded during the clashes and added that a dozen people have been arrested.<\/p>\n

Just before the start of Iran\u2019s calendar year in March, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi<\/a>, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran delivered a speech in which she said that recent social unrest in Iran is a sign that \u201cthe flame of the uprisings has risen from under the ashes of the coronavirus.\u201d The subsequent month seemed to provide more and more support for that conclusion, while \u201cResistance Units\u201d of the People\u2019s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, circulated messages of support for various groups of protesters while also urging the public as a whole to boycott upcoming sham presidential elections which the clerical regime hopes to present to the world as a symbol of its legitimacy.<\/p>\n

The Major Iran protests began in the final days of 2017 when a protest in the city of Mashhad rapidly spread to more than 100 cities and towns while also taking on anti-regime messaging. Another uprising encompassed nearly 200 localities in November 2019<\/a> and was met with extraordinary repressive measures that killed over 1,500 people. Nevertheless, large-scale protests emerged once again in January 2020, which suggests that the uprisings would have continued on past that point if not for the pandemic\u2019s effects on public gatherings.<\/p>\n

It would be wrong to say that Iran\u2019s protest movement ever went completely during the previous calendar year. Scattered demonstrations continued to utilize the slogans that had been popularized during the previous uprisings. Among these were calls for the removal of both the regime\u2019s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and its President Hassan Rouhani, as well as condemnations of both the \u201chardline\u201d and the \u201creformist\u201d of the regime. However, nothing past January 2020 rivaled the scale of the three mass protest movements.<\/p>\n

This remains the case even today, but the latest outpourings of dissent point to escalating trends in the people\u2019s disgust with the ruling theocracy, and thus also in their willingness to brave the dual risks of regime repression and still-worsening coronavirus infection in order to challenge the future of the theocratic dictatorship.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Rajavi\u2019s speech at the Nowruz holiday was delivered weeks after of clashes between local residents and the regime in the city of Saravan and the border province of Sistan and Baluchistan. After the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC)<\/a> opened fire on fuel porters whose only source of livelihood had been obstructed by this terrorist entity, members of the surrounding community came to their defense and expressed outrage at the regime\u2019s repression by burning police buildings and chanting against the IRGC specifically.<\/p>\n

While fuel porters in border regions are especially prone to social marginalization, the clashes in Saravan, reflect the much broader effects of corruption within a system where the IRGC control well over half of Iran\u2019s gross domestic product through a network of commercial partners and front companies. This corruption has been the central focus of some of the most recent protest movements which are foretelling the prospects of another nationwide uprising.<\/p>\n

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Iran Protests: Nationwide Uprising in Iran- November 2019<\/div><\/div>
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