From schools to now the universities Iranians are expressing their discontent with theocratic government rule.
Students protested on Tuesday at Beheshti University and the Khaje Nasir Toosi University of Technology, both in Tehran, as well as Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, in Khuzestan province.
Despite what rights group Amnesty International has called an “unrelenting brutal crackdown”, young women and men were again protesting. “Death to the dictator” and “Death to the Revolutionary Guards”, women chanted.
The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) said the demonstrations so far had cost the lives of at least 141 protesters.
During the past five weeks, thousands of Iranians have protested against the theocracy in over 100 cities.
“In challenging the mandatory hijab, they are questioning and rejecting the very essence of the rules and principles upon which the hijab is imposed,” Sanam Anderlini, native Iranian and member of the International Civil Society Action Network explained. “On one level it is about the question of choice about the hijab, but that’s the tip of the iceberg. The hijab is an integral symbol of the regime’s ‘Islamist’ identity, which embeds women’s second-class status, discrimination in the constitution and law.”
Socialists cannot make predictions about the future but we can voice our support and solidarity for fellow workers campaigning for more freedom.