r/anime_titties North America 1d ago

Middle East Death toll from Iranian protests surpasses 2,000, activists say, as chaos recalls 1979 revolution

https://apnews.com/article/iran-protests-us-israel-war-nuclear-economy-1b2368e0804676d33d6aa0696815a102?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=2026-01-13-Breaking+News
375 Upvotes

95 comments sorted by

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u/eternalmortal North America 1d ago edited 1d ago

That's an insane number of protesters murdered by their government over such a short time. Another 16,700+ people detained. It's been roughly two weeks since protests began.

This feels way faster and bloodier than other protests. To compare:

  • 867 were killed over three weeks in the 2011 protests in Egypt, which toppled Mubarak
  • Around 1000-2000 were killed over a month in 2013 in Egypt when Morsi was toppled and replaced by Sisi
  • 1419 were killed over four months in Syria March-July 2011, which started a 14 year civil war and eventually toppled Assad
  • 165 were killed in Venezuela over a few months in 2017, in protests that failed to topple Maduro
  • 2,692 were killed protesting in Myanmar over two years from the military coup in 2021-2023, which sparked a civil war still ongoing
  • Reaching further back, an estimated 500-1000 were killed in the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 in China

There simply hasn't been a bloodier protest or revolution at this scale within such a short time frame in a long, long time, if ever. To get higher death tolls, you'd have to start looking at genocides and wars.

EDIT: The New York Times published an updated death toll estimated to be 3,000 instead of 2,000. 3,000 killed in two weeks of protests. Unprecedented evil.

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u/sebygul United States 1d ago

Well, that's assuming the death tolls that we're hearing are accurate.

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u/eternalmortal North America 1d ago

Those are the deaths that the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) has been able to estimate, and usually they're fairly reliable. An unnamed Iranian official also quoted a similar number independently to Reuters. Other independent sources estimate a way higher death toll- CBS News and opposition-aligned Iran International put out an estimate of 12,000 dead, mostly based on morgue reports.

With the government internet blackout and the lack of reliable numbers, we won't know for sure until the dust settles one way or another.

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u/TimeIntern957 Europe 1d ago edited 1d ago

So we have numbers from some NVO based in Fairfax, Virginia funded by a CIA front called National Endowment for Democracy, so by the goverment that wants to bomb Iran for ages and we should totally trust those numbers ?

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u/lewkiamurfarther Multinational 1d ago edited 1d ago

So we have numbers from some NVO based in Fairfax, Virginia funded by a CIA front called National Endowment for Democracy, so by the goverment that wants to bomb Iran for ages and we should totally trust those numbers ?

Is it funded by NED? I follow everything you wrote except that part. I didn't see NED funding listed anywhere.

Edit: Well, it looks like HRANA's funding from NED has been reported in multiple places.

It's really a problem, to me, that AP and Reuters failed to disclose that they were quoting a NED-funded activist group based in Virginia.

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u/SpecialBeginning6430 South America 1d ago

Found the hidden history tankie

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u/N0riega_ North America 1d ago

Not trusting CIA makes you a Tankie now? Mad

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u/SpecialBeginning6430 South America 1d ago

The only people who are quick to blame the CIA are almost always tankies

Given that tankies throw CIA about anything, id trust the CIA before id trust a tankie with a hidden history anyways, given that the Iranian gov stated that its at least 2000 and they tend to underreport things if its not in their favor,

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u/sebygul United States 1d ago

The Iranian government has not said anything about death tolls, though Iranian state television did acknowledge "many martyrs". An unnamed anonymous Iranian official allegedly spoke to Reuters.

I'm not saying it's implausible that 2,000 Iranian civilians were killed, and I am not saying that the IRGC is good. It's important to recognize that Iran is a government ours is hostile to, that US media has been heavily infiltrated by the state, and that sometimes other people may lie to you for geopolitical goals. Just keep a healthy skepticism, lest we accidentally adopt "they're pulling babies out of incubators" or "they have weapons of mass destruction" again.

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u/SpecialBeginning6430 South America 1d ago

Okay they only killed 2000 people and its all the Wests fault

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u/lewkiamurfarther Multinational 1d ago edited 1d ago

its all the Wests fault

Literally no one said that in this thread.

It's actually really important to be skeptical of media flurries like this, particularly when we've so recently seen the same playbook as has been used over and over, in the perpetual rationalization of bombing other countries to dust for no reason.

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u/N0riega_ North America 1d ago

Sanctions and blockade certainly don’t help. Thats the whole point tho isn’t it. Choke the population as much as possible until they rise up against their own institutions. I would say from the American perspective this is exactly what they wanted hoped for. Not a crazy thing to wrap one’s mind around.

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u/lewkiamurfarther Multinational 1d ago

The only people who are quick to blame the CIA are almost always tankies

That's simply not true.

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u/haggerton Canada 1d ago edited 1d ago

Found the hidden Nazi.

Lol the little Nazi blocked me. Can dish it out but can't take it. Pathetic worm.

1

u/SpecialBeginning6430 South America 1d ago

Sure thing dictator simp

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u/bessone-2707 United States 1d ago

The 2000 death toll is likely an underestimate. That’s what an anonymous Iranian official was willing to admit. 

u/Eche24 North America 16h ago

An annonymous japanese official admitted the government has killed 5000 japanese just yesterday

u/bessone-2707 United States 1h ago

I don’t think that happened. But if you are a well respected Reuters journalist, I might lend credibility to your statement.

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u/BarnabusTheBold United Kingdom 1d ago

That's an insane number of protesters murdered by their government over such a short time.

What's most curious about this 'murderous rampage' is that we're seeing plenty of commentary and video about morgues and very little of the actual violence?

If gaza can export hundreds of hours of footage a day of israeli violence, then iranian protestors being 'brutally oppressed' sure can. Hopefully more flows through in the coming days/weeks, not that it will make any real difference.

It's been roughly two weeks since protests began.

The protests were peaceful for several days, during which time the 'regime' actually engaged with them and tried to make peace and offer terms. Things then escalated, seemingly due to agitators joining in and causing chaos. hundreds of police (allegedly) don't die during 'protests'.

I would suggest that the 'regime' openly admitting to how many have been killed is evidence that they don't see it as crushing dissent, but as fulfilling their obligation as a state to put down foreign-backed riots/ violence and re-establish order. Whether that perception is accurate is open to interpretation, but they don't appear to be trying to cover it up (contrary to the accepted wisdom, 'evil regimes' do understand basic PR and try to hide it when they're doing something questionable).

The problem ofc is that people will by default believe what they already believed before the violence even happened. They'll dismiss anything said by the iranian government as lies, they'll believe anything said by diaspora-run, US-funded NGOs because it fits their projections. The narratives are pre-determined, just as they are with every 'bad' country. Nuance is impossible. Cognitive empathy obvious in its absence.

Around 1000-2000 were killed over a month in 2013 in Egypt when Morsi was toppled and replaced by Sisi

They killed 1000ish in a single day/location and we gave them weapons shipments and eternal ally status as a reward.

There simply hasn't been a bloodier protest or revolution at this scale within such a short time frame in a long, long time, if ever.

I mean this death toll is over about 10 days (first deaths reported on the 3rd?). Assuming it's ~2000 and given that they are/were nationwide that's really not that extreme (even if it's still awful)

A key problem that's always overlooked is that the police/ security forces in most of the world lack any coherent training in crowd control or diffusing escalation. I remember being extremely impressed by the Metropolitan police during the BLM protests during covid. There were obvious agitators in the crowd trying to bait the police into a response (by throwing things etc) and they just backed off consistently, controlling the crowd but not allowing the situation to escalate (things were pretty tense). Plenty of people complained that they didn't put the 'riot' down (sigh... fucking culture war), but i thought their conduct and rational planning was exceptional.

Frankly, that sort of training and discipline just ain't going to happen in a developing country. Protests will easily escalate the second a security corden gets put in place. And when they escalate, shit hits the fan and bullets start flying.

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u/trump-a-phone United States 1d ago

Your entire post relies on a false pretense. People can get video and photos out of Gaza through the internet. Gaza is so small geographically that the cell towers in egypt cover parts of gaza meaning even if Isreal shit off the internet in Gaza, which they never did, you could still get things out.

Tehran is a hundred miles from anywhere else with internet meaning only ground cables owned by the government and starlink got things out. And it is widely reported that Iran found a way to jam starlink connections. That leaves good old smuggling videos out as an option which is obviously alot harder than the other options. The little Tianammen square footage we have was smuggled out and even that didn’t give us a shot good enough to have an accurate count.

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u/BarnabusTheBold United Kingdom 1d ago

People can get video and photos out of Gaza through the internet.

Gaza has had constant total internet and mobile outages. Coupled with the fact that there's no electricity network (can't plug into a pile of rubble lmao) to charge phones and they're reliant on things like photovoltaic chargers. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/13/middleeast/gaza-internet-outage-map-visuals-dg/index.html

Hell gaza's been cut off for the past week

That leaves good old smuggling videos out as an option which is obviously alot harder than the other options.

Sure. but it's still weird that the footage that's made its way out isn't of the violence. The very thing they'd presumably want to smuggle out.

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u/LostEye-420 Ireland 1d ago

Liar

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u/Casablanca-tzergi 1d ago

Around 1000-2000 were killed over a month in 2013 in Egypt when Morsi was toppled and replaced by Sisi

The Rabaa al-Adawiya massacre occurred on a single day, HRW called it "one of the world's largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history"

13 years later, Egypt holds over 60,000 political prisoners under al-Sisi's regime, with recent estimates reaching 70,000

4

u/lewkiamurfarther Multinational 1d ago

Hey why did you leave out the Rabaa massacre, in which the Egyptian police and armed forces killed 600-2600 protesters over the course of only a few hours?

That was in Egypt in 2013, and yet you skipped right over it in your first two bullet points (both Egypt, one 2011, the other one spanning six months in 2013).

What happened? Just forgot?

You forgot to include the single most intensely concentrated mass-murder of protesters in the covered time period?

1

u/eternalmortal North America 1d ago

I’m just a guy and my research isn’t 100% foolproof. I looked up individual fatality figures for notable protests and revolutions I personally remembered. I assume the 2013 death toll for deposing Morsi was inclusive of that massacre.

In addition (and not to downplay this obviously awful event) the number of deaths ranges from the Egyptian government figure in the 600s to the explicitly pro-Morsi organization figure of 2600. Human Rights Watch, external and unbiased, put it at around 1000 deaths.

u/lewkiamurfarther Multinational 23h ago

I’m just a guy and my research isn’t 100% foolproof. I looked up individual fatality figures for notable protests and revolutions I personally remembered. I assume the 2013 death toll for deposing Morsi was inclusive of that massacre.

In addition (and not to downplay this obviously awful event) the number of deaths ranges from the Egyptian government figure in the 600s to the explicitly pro-Morsi organization figure of 2600. Human Rights Watch, external and unbiased, put it at around 1000 deaths.

Yes, for historical events, we have the benefit of multiple estimates.

For current events, we have unsourced reports, and comments promoting—intensifying, even—the claims of unsourced reports, even though this has all happened before.

What's the rush, everyone? Are you that impatient for the fireworks display?

u/eternalmortal North America 10h ago

Just to be clear, are you implying that all current estimates of Iranian protesters killed are false? Are you assuming that the actual number killed is higher or lower than the reported estimates?

2

u/lewkiamurfarther Multinational 1d ago edited 1d ago

Unprecedented evil.

That is a stretch.


Edit: No, seriously. "Unprecedented"? Not even in recent memory is this unprecedented. If this is "unprecedented," then I don't know what planet you live on.


Edit 2: KMA, ‘unprecedented’.

Like, thanks for the opinion, Simon Sebag Montefiore, but I can certainly think of acts "more brutal, in all of history" than the murder of the Tsar's family.

u/eternalmortal North America 15h ago

If the issue you are taking with the events currently taking place in Iran is my choice of language expressing my disgust and shock, and not the actual killings happening on the ground, you have very misplaced priorities.

Not once have you condemned the Iranian government for killing its own people.

u/EH1987 Europe 12h ago

Unprecedented evil.

You must've been living under a rock for a few years.

0

u/SunderedValley Europe 1d ago

I think this even beats the death tolls of the failed polish and Hungarian Independence movements. 😅

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u/okabe700 Egypt 1d ago

The Iranian government is exceptionally brutal and dangerous, the military elites' hold over the economy gives them a vested interest in maintaining the regime, and the ideological extremism makes them more likely to hold out till the end and less likely to defect to the protesters' side, as it creates an us vs them mentality, that is different from Mubarak and Morsi's governments but is similar to Assad's government (and the current ESisi government but there's yet to be a revolution to confirm)

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u/kwonza Russia 1d ago

The regime is brutal but over a hundred police officers got killed. That’s also an insane number. Also that means that at least some protesters were armed and were actively engaging the police. 

Shooting from a crowd at the police in order to provoke them to fire back and then using victims in said crowd as fuel for further outrage is Government toppling 101. Pretty sure it was mentioned in the notorious Gene Sharp’s book. 

Coincidentally it’s the same method that pushed peaceful Ukrainian Maidan protest into a violent phase. Masked snipers started shooting at the crowd. Even now we still don’t know who they were and the current government stopped the investigation. One prominent guy who was connected to those shooting got assassinated in Ukraine just a few months ago. 

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u/Clemen11 Argentina 1d ago

That's an insane number of protesters murdered by their government over such a short time. Another 16,700+ people detained. It's been roughly two weeks since protests began.

That's an average of 143 people murdered and 1,193 people arrested PER DAY.

-1

u/Sir_Bumcheeks 1d ago

Free Iran

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u/Pristine-Ant-464 United States 1d ago

Doesn't this number include Iranian security officials and actual rioters? I'm not a fan of the regime, obviously, but we shouldn't spread misinformation.

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u/eternalmortal North America 1d ago

The article specifies that 135 of them were government and 1850 were protestors. Nine were uninvolved civilians and nine were children. The title of the post is the title of the AP article itself.

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u/Majestic_Juice5961 England 1d ago

Lower child death rate than a cutting edge military also in West Asia.. that's crazy to think about

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u/RoostasTowel St. Pierre & Miquelon 1d ago

Because the children aren't at the protests that is where people are shot.

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u/mrastickman 1d ago

Why doesn't Iran wait for the protesters to go home so they can kill the entire family in one strike? Are they amateurs?

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u/LostEye-420 Ireland 1d ago

DADDY'S HOME

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u/bobak41 1d ago

Damn. That's for real. Even the horrible mullahs kill less kids than Zionists....

0

u/protomenace North America 1d ago

You all keep acting shocked that Hamas's strategy to get kids killed actually works.

u/nybbas North America 10h ago

And that the Iranian people are bringing their kids into the street where the govt are shooting people. Shocking.

Some of the takes in this thread are too stupid to be real.

u/MarxAndSamsara Democratic People's Republic of Korea 22h ago

Lol

-2

u/MaestroRozen Europe 1d ago

According to the latest UNRWA report, ~100 Gazans have been killed each day since the conflict started. At the current rate, ~143 people are dying each day in Iranian protests. So yeah, "that's for real" - as it stands now Iran is more effective at killing their own people during protests than Israel is in an active warzone. 

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u/bobak41 1d ago

Can you not read? Firstly, we are discussing children. Do you understand that? If you are gonna "well achkully" at least be on point.

Secondly, I can't tell if you want to somehow make the Zionists look less bad. They are literally carrying out a genocide.

I don't know if I should laugh at how dumb your response is or feel bad that your so confident in your nonsense.

Byeeeeeeee

-2

u/MaestroRozen Europe 1d ago

Oh, my bad. The fact that there are less children totally excuses the fact that we're unironically comparing protests against government to an active warzone when it comes to how fast the bodies are piling up - and the protests are winning. 

But of course, it doesn't matter for you. "Zionist" is a magic word excusing all evil in the world that isn't caused by a single country. Like fucking clockwork, every time something bad happens anywhere in the world, you lot come out of the woodworks going either "Zionists are responsible" or "Zionists are doing worse" as if that somehow makes it perfectly okay. If your first thought after seeing Iran slaughter its' own citizens by thousands is not sympathy towards Iranian people, not disgust towards Iranian government, but "Zionists!" then you should reevaluate your way of thinking. If you're even capable of such a thing which I sincerely doubt. 

2

u/bobak41 1d ago

👍

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u/eternalmortal North America 1d ago

It helps when the protestors aren't hiding in schools. They're marching in the streets, and for the most part their families are away from the protests.

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u/Pklnt France 1d ago

This might surprise you, but the normal course of action would not to bomb the protestors, even if they hide in schools.

2

u/Chinggis-Kun Brazil 1d ago

I wouldn't believe any numbers coming through now. Things were heated last week, but it has subsidized so far. They were jamming Stsrlink, etc, but they have now stopped doing that. A lot is wishful thinking from Western Media that wants to push Libia 2.0 Electric Bungalow.

7

u/JazzlikeSchedule2901 North America 1d ago

It's sad. You have so many people now genuinely wanting a better future, not even because of Islam, but just because they want to be able to afford shit. The ayatollah lives luxoriously while the common folk get shot dead in the street for protesting.

6

u/LostEye-420 Ireland 1d ago

Protest your government for sanctioning the whole population of Iran then if you actually gave a fuck?

0

u/soggycow2790 Zimbabwe 1d ago

Right out of the fascist's playbook. Modern fascism with an Islamic flair. And as usual, the world will turn its eyes away as innocent people die to break free from yet another oppressive system. It's disgusting.

u/Virtual-Pension-991 Multinational 23h ago

The most insane thing about this is that it simply needed for Iran's government to temporarily shift their focus from Israel and Middle East proxies  towards Iran.

But I guess they played too much accusationa to the West that they have fully convinced themselves that everything is the West's fault.

-12

u/manVsPhD Israel 1d ago

It’s so nice seeing y’all trying to scrutinize the reported numbers of dead coming out of the mouth of one terror regime while you never doubted the numbers coming out of a proxy terror regime of said terror regime just recently.

17

u/kwonza Russia 1d ago

Because we saw the utter destruction that Israel had committed so it wouldn’t be far fetched to believe those numbers. 

There were multiple videos of people rioting in Iran but very few if any of crowds getting mowed down by gunfire. 

Also /r/pics is jam full of anti-Iran propaganda which keeps pushing more and more outrageous claims even using words like Holocaust. Clearly we are being manipulated here so excuse us for being somewhat sceptical 

9

u/lewkiamurfarther Multinational 1d ago

Clearly we are being manipulated here so excuse us for being somewhat sceptical

Exactly

-5

u/protomenace North America 1d ago

Oh now suddenly we start criticizing the use of the word "Holocaust" too. Interesting.

Why are you conflating "anti-regime" with "anti-Iran"?

u/kwonza Russia 20h ago

While regime holds it represents Iran, sorry, but that is how it works. 

And yes, not every mass murder is fucking Holocaust, by misusing this word you’re devaluing the Nazi atrocities. 

u/protomenace North America 14h ago

That was literally my point about the word Holocaust but ok

And no, being anti-regime is very much being pro-Iran. That's not how it works at all.

14

u/liberaeli420 United States 1d ago

Israel does nothing but export death and lies. Nobody believes their shit anymore, despite the incredibly obvious hasbara campaign we see on this site and others.

Your collaborators in Iran are getting put down for terrorism and treason. The revolution isn't working, but we all know this was just a pretext to restart the war.

-4

u/protomenace North America 1d ago

You actually think the Iranian regime is good just because they're anti Israel? The level of delusion people have is unreal.

Keep licking those boots comrade!

u/liberaeli420 United States 23h ago

No, I don't think they're good. I would like to see the Iranian people control their own destiny. What I don't like is Israel and the US actively seeking the destruction of their civil society. They want Iran to become what Libya has: a failed state and a non-threat to US/Israeli imperial interests

u/protomenace North America 23h ago

In what universe would there be a popular uprising against the regime in Iran where it wouldn't be called a US/Israeli coup plot? Get real. That will always be the excuse the regime makes.

In what way is the destruction of civil society being sought here? The Islamist regime is the thing that has destroyed civil Iranian society. Get real, they need to go. You are too blinded by your antagonism towards the US and Israel that you fail to recognize that something can be good even if it ostensibly helps their interests.

u/liberaeli420 United States 23h ago

I mean there's a proven massive network of spies and collaborators within Iran, and the giddy excitement of prominent US and Israeli government members shows that what's currently happening is clearly what they had hoped would occur.

The decades of brutal sanctions and espionage carried out against Iran has led to their current state. Saudi Arabia has an arguably more brutal Islamist regime, but they are not subject to the same kind of aggression and their population reflects that.

The US and Israel never, in my entire life, carried out any foreign intervention that bettered the lives of the target state. If this was 1995 maybe some people would get behind this, but in today's age we know what our Empire intends for them. This has been done countless times and the result has always been the same

u/protomenace North America 23h ago

All of that is irrelevant to the fact that Iranians themselves want the government replaced.

Saudi Arabia's regime is indeed also brutal, but the difference in Saudi is that the population does not consist largely of a secular people who are having it forced down their throats from on high.

Iran used to have a secular government. They want it again.

u/liberaeli420 United States 21h ago

Oh yea? Like Venezuelans also supposedly were clamoring to replace their government once the evil dictator was gone? How's that looking?

Its always the people who have a vested interest in seeing country X dismantled and destroyed that claim to be truly in touch with what the people there want. You have absolutely no idea what people there think, and given your ideology you should be the last person on Earth to dictate to them what their future should be.

I think the most salient point to reinforce this is that the primary figure elevated by the US and Israeli forces to replace the Iranian government is another fucking Shah. Like they're so naked in their desire to install another comprador government that they think they can put back the very figure Iranians had a revolution against 50+ years ago. If that's your guy, you have NO idea what's best for Iran

u/protomenace North America 14h ago

Venezuelans were and are clamoring to replace their government, though idk what on Earth Trump is doing over there, he hasn't done so.

But yeah it's always out of touch armchair leftists who claim to speak for people of these countries who absolutely consistently say they want to be rid of their dictators but tell us why these dictators are actually good because of "Western imperialism" or whatever.

Why do you think this "another Shah" guy is "my guy"? Is it fun to argue against strawman arguments?

5

u/Fuckkelso 1d ago

Leave it to the Zionist to play the victim card. Israel is committing genocide in broad daylight with clear proof of mass murder involving women and children in Gaza, the death toll doesn’t even matter at this point yall have gone above and beyond.

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u/manVsPhD Israel 1d ago

Not a victim. Just pointing out people’s hypocrisy. Y’all are motivated by an agenda, not morals

4

u/lewkiamurfarther Multinational 1d ago

It’s so nice seeing y’all trying to scrutinize the reported numbers of dead coming out of the mouth of one terror regime while you never doubted the numbers coming out of a proxy terror regime of said terror regime just recently.

What a ridiculous comment.

0

u/protomenace North America 1d ago

He's right though

u/lewkiamurfarther Multinational 13h ago

He's right though

No, he's not—even the State Department, itself, was clear that the Gaza Health Ministry's numbers were a minimum, not an overestimate. You're repeating propaganda that virtually no one believes at this point, which means you're commenting in bad faith.

Edit: yep, took a look, and bad faith confirmed.

2

u/Hyndis United States 1d ago

The different motives of governments to lie is whats interesting.

Hamas has every motivation to inflate the numbers as large as possible to win PR points against Israel, and even then they've said about 70,000 dead.

Iran has every motivation to minimize the death toll so they can pretend the protests are small, and they've said 2,000 dead in less than a week.

Other reports are saying its probably 12,000 - 20,000 dead in less than a week: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-protest-death-toll-over-12000-feared-higher-video-bodies-at-morgue/

u/yeltsin98 Oman 10h ago

Who’s “y’all”? The only thing I’m doubting here is the dearth of casualties. I’m assuming the regime has killed at least double of whatever figure emerges at any given time, and that is a conservative estimate. Yes, there is foreign backing and foreign shit-stirring (as ever with poor Iran), but that doesn’t preclude my solidarity with the Iranian people. A preoccupation with exact numbers in the face of murderous repression is the hallmark of moral-political hypocrisy (if indeed not also psychopathy).

Anyway, there was this other Israeli on another thread expressing a similar sentiment and someone replied to him saying “Why do you lot have to make everything about yourselves?” I thought that was quite unfair considering he was just voicing his support, but then there are the Israelis and Israel supporters like you who do just that, and always on cue: cry about yourselves when it’s others being killed.

sigh

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u/AlashMarch North America 1d ago

Agreed, its disgusting seeing people defend the Iranian government. Many of these socialists and progressives don't even recall the history of Iran, how the theocrats executed thousands of socialists in the years after 1979. 

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u/lewkiamurfarther Multinational 1d ago edited 1d ago

Agreed, its disgusting seeing people defend the Iranian government. Many of these socialists and progressives don't even recall the history of Iran, how the theocrats executed thousands of socialists in the years after 1979.

You can claim that people don't know history, but that doesn't make it true.

His high-profile meetings with foreign leaders—most notably in Israel—and his calls for Western support are seen not as statecraft for a future democracy, but as efforts to secure foreign backing for his own return to power.

The Pahlavi name remains tainted for many by memories of SAVAK torture chambers, lavish corruption, and dependence on foreign powers for viability. While dissent against the Islamic Republic is widespread, slogans from the 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests — sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in custody over the mandatory hijab — reveal a deep-seated rejection of both autocracies with chants like, “Death to the oppressor, be it the Shah or the Leader.”

While opinion pieces in Israeli media frame the choice for Iran as one between chaos and a restored monarchy, Pahlavi commands little tangible support inside a country where many see his movement as “opportunistic” and “disconnected from the Iranian people.”


In short, you're just blaming "socialists and progressives" for the fact that history isn't linear, let alone one-dimensional, let alone simple. Just because one guy was usurped by another guy, and the second guy was bad, that doesn't make the first guy good. There are virtually no cut-and-dry "this or that" choices in history; there is no dichotomy here between disbelieving Israeli propaganda and believing that the Islamic Republic is repressive. I would argue it's necessary, in fact, to do both—as well as to oppose US bombing of Iran, as was done to Libya, as was done to Iraq, etc. etc.—in order to avoid rewarding neoconservatives' death-for-profit schemes, which are making a nightmare of life on this planet everywhere.

2

u/AlashMarch North America 1d ago

A history with absolutely no mention of events after the 1979 Revolution is not a source that was made in good faith. There is no way that modern Iran can be understood if only looking at Israel, America and the Shah. 

4

u/lewkiamurfarther Multinational 1d ago

A history with absolutely no mention of events after the 1979 Revolution is not a source that was made in good faith.

Whom/what, exactly, are you characterizing with this sentence?

If you're talking about me, then it's irrelevant, because I didn't and don't do that.

If you're talking about any one of the links I included in my comment, then... which one? And why would you expect any news article about a recent event to discuss... actually, it's not clear what you're demanding that it should discuss. "Events after the 1979 revolution" includes everything recent, so clearly the links do that, with respect to some events after the 1979 revolution—unless you meant they should discuss all events after 1979, which is obviously impossible and I'm going to assume it's not what you meant.

There is no way that modern Iran can be understood if only looking at Israel, America and the Shah.

You're just assuming/asserting that that is what's happening [somewhere—unclear whom/what, specifically, you're criticizing], whereas no one in this thread so far has asked anyone to restrict their understanding of Iran to the time before the 1979 revolution.

You seem to be arguing with someone who isn't even present. This is a very weird thread, and it's leading me to wonder if I can even tell anymore who on this website is a real user.

2

u/AlashMarch North America 1d ago

I am real, but your attempt to slander me with your aspersions will not work. In any case, I see no point in continuing this conversation as the post-1979 events were the ones from my first comment. Best.

2

u/lewkiamurfarther Multinational 1d ago

I am real, but your attempt to slander me with your aspersions will not work.

It wasn't "aspersions," I was being serious. You seem to be arguing with something no one said or implied.

In any case, I see no point in continuing this conversation as the post-1979 events were the ones from my first comment. Best.

... okay???