Understanding the Iranian Narrative

Inside Iran's Geographic Divide

On 26 June 2022 Zar Amir Ebrahimi won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in the film Holy Spider, the story of a journalist, in misogynistic Iran, who investigates a serial killer murdering prostitutes. As Ebrahimi took her prize, she announced that “Iran’s next revolution will be brought on by women taking back the freedoms denied to them in the Islamic republic”.

Then a few months later, on 16 September 2022, an Iranian girl of Kurdish origin named Mahsa Amini died in a hospital in Tehran, allegedly at the hands of Iran’s Morality Police. The story immediately spread on social media, with the Twitter hashtag Mahsa Amini being retweeted almost 40 million times by the end of September 2022. Supporters of “The Iranian Government” and opponents of “The Iranian Regime” contested the details surrounding her death from the get go, such as the autopsy report saying that she died from cerebral hypoxia; the video released by the authorities that shows her collapse in front of the morality police; and her father’s refusal to accept that her past medical history had anything to do with her death.

Women inside Iran started burning their hijabs in protest of Iran’s mandatory dress codes and outright discriminatory rules towards women in general, resulting in a crackdown by the Iranian Government. In response to the protest, Iran arrested many protestors, including teenagers, but it’s also worth noting that about 22,000 protestors were later pardoned by the Supreme Leader, even though they probably should never have been jailed. The protesters were joined by Iranians in the diaspora with sympathy rallies taking place in Europe and North America. The Protest in Berlin at the end of October was particularly significant as it attracted up to 80,000 people – larger than any protest that took place within the Islamic Republic of Iran.

As a recent Mossad report admitted, the Iranian Protests have peaked, noting that the largest crowd inside Iran only attracted about 45,000 participants. The Israeli Intelligence Report blames ‘the winter’ as the culprit for decline, but it’s worth reflecting if there aren’t other reasons and if the Iranian Government doesn’t enjoy wide support from the larger public.

We have been told stories that the government is about to be toppled, but are these reports actually true?

Full article at Propaganda in Focus