DUBAI (Reuters) – Iranian authorities hanged protesters to reveal bodies hanging from cranes. In the months since protests against the government began, it seems that frightened people have disappeared from the streets.
The successful crackdown on the worst political turmoil in years is likely to reinforce the notion among hardliners in the Iranian establishment that suppressing dissidents is the only way to stay in power.
But those gains may not last long, according to analysts and experts interviewed by Reuters. Relying on state violence to take lives would not only drive dissidents underground, but would also deepen the resentment felt by ordinary Iranians at the clerical power that has dominated the country for four decades in their claim.
“It is[y gwrthdaro]has been successful more or less because there are fewer people complaining in the streets,” said Saeed Golkar of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
“However, it has created a great deal of resentment among the Iranian people.”
Hadi Gaemi, executive director of the Iran Human Rights Campaign, said the regime’s main focus was to force people to submit by any means necessary.
“The protests have taken shape, but they are not over. Those who have not been imprisoned are going underground, determined to find ways to continue fighting,” he said.
Defying public outrage and international criticism, Iran has issued dozens of death sentences in an attempt to calm Iranians outraged by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman in a rice field.
The sudden death of Amini in September 2022, who had been detained by the disciplinary police, has ignited anger that has been building up in Iranian society for years. The anger has ranged from economic hardship and discrimination against ethnic minorities to greater social and political control.
At least four people have been hanged since the protests began, according to the judiciary. Among them are two demonstrators who were executed on Saturday for allegedly killing members of the Basij militia.
Human rights group Amnesty International said last month that Iranian authorities were seeking the death penalty for at least 26 other people after “formal trials designed to intimidate protesters”.
Behind the move, experts say, is the style of governance that clerics have consistently adopted since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which brought clerical rule. In other words, it is a willingness to do whatever it takes to prevent dissent.
“The regime’s main strategy has always been to win through fear. Considering the regime’s incompetence and lack of ability to reform and govern well, repression is the regime’s only solution,” said Golkar.
Since the executions began, the protests have apparently lost momentum. The most violent protests to date have been in predominantly Sunni areas of the country, and recent protests have been largely confined to those areas.
But the revolutionary spirit that has managed to take hold across the country during months of protests could survive the crackdown by the security services, analysts say. And not only because the cases of protestors’ complaints remain unresolved.
Iran’s economic woes have worsened, largely due to US sanctions over Tehran’s alleged nuclear program, and many of its citizens are suffering from rising inflation and rising unemployment.
Inflation has accelerated to more than 50%, the highest for decades. Youth unemployment remains high as more than 50 percent of the population is forced to live below the poverty line, according to reports from Iran’s Statistics Center.
“I don’t see a tipping point (back to the old state) and the regime cannot go back to the time before Amini’s death,” Gaemi said.
Alex Batanka, director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said the Iranian government has relied on repression and violence as a way out of this crisis.
“It might work in the short term, but it won’t work in the long term,” Batanka said, citing Iran’s declining economy and “the desire for and fight for major political change.” ” noted the presence of young people who do not know fear.
There is no indication that Iran’s leaders, including President Ibrahim Raisi, are willing to formulate new policies to win public support. Instead, they seem to be just nervous about maintaining public order.
Iran’s clerical leadership appears to be concerned that showing restraint towards protesters will be seen as weak by political and militia supporters, analysts said.
Reuters reached Raisi’s Oval Office for comment but was unable to reach them.
Another purpose of the execution, Mr Golkar said, was that the leadership needed to satisfy the staunch supporters of organizations like the Basij. The Basij, a volunteer militia, has been active in responding to unrest that occurs spontaneously and has no clear leader.
“The organization wants to send a message to their supporters that they will support them in any way possible,” said Golker.
Shockingly, authorities imposed travel bans and prison terms on several celebrities, from athletes to artists to rappers. Among those executed was a national karate champion.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a televised address on Tuesday that the government was not willing to ease its conflict, saying: “Anyone who set fire to a public place has undoubtedly committed treason.”
The uncompromising exercise of state power has been a central theme in President Raisi’s career so far. The US and human rights campaigners say he oversaw the execution of thousands of political prisoners in the 1980s, and the US has targeted him for sanctions.
When asked by reporters about the executions in the 1980s shortly after the 2021 presidential election, Raisi replied that he should be praised for protecting public safety.
Gaemi said key officials now pushing for executions were also heavily involved in the execution of political prisoners in the 1980s.
“But this is no longer the 1980s when they committed those crimes in secret,” Gaemi said. “Everything they do flows on social media and has generated huge interest internationally.”
(Translation: Eacleren)
