As details of the death toll for January’s protests continue to emerge, three students explain why they are resisting a return to normality

As details of the death toll for January’s protests continue to emerge, three students explain why they are resisting a return to normality

More than 45 days after a brutal January crackdown that left thousands of Iranian protesters dead, students across several universities are protesting again. As Iran’s new academic term began on Saturday, students in Tehran gathered on campus, chanting anti-government slogans, despite a heavy security presence and plainclothes officers stationed outside university gates.

The Guardian spoke to protesting students about why they were rallying despite the fact that thousands had been killed and tens of thousands arrested in the January demonstrations.

“Our classrooms are empty because the graveyards are full,” said Hossein*, 21, a student at the University of Tehran. “It’s for them – our friends, classmates and compatriots, who were gunned down in front of our eyes, that we decided to boycott the classes.”

    • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      32·
      3 months ago

      Well, the western media did publish videos. That’s why I and others have seen them. You don’t have to take my word for it, just follow the link in my previous comment.

      The reason it isn’t all over your social media feed probably has something to do with tankies not wanting to promote content that proves the Iranian regime is a violent dictatorship. That kind of flies in the face of their carefully constructed alternative reality in which only the west is evil and anti-western governments can do no wrong.

      It would be harder for them to deny the atrocities if they were posting the videos themselves, so that’s why you don’t see as much as you do from Gaza.

        • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          21·
          3 months ago

          I didn’t say they control all the social media feeds, but if your social media feeds are mostly tankie content then you’re not gonna see the stuff they aren’t posting.

          The guardian isn’t western propaganda, ffs. It’s independent journalism. You’re here peddling pro-mullah propaganda, because the facts are the regime murdered thousands of protesters in the span of a couple weeks and you’re trying to say “nuh uh, western lies!”

            • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
              2·
              3 months ago

              If you’re going out of your way to avoid any information that conflicts with your preferred narrative, don’t act like contrary evidence doesn’t exist just because you haven’t seen it.

                • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
                  2·
                  3 months ago

                  The protests and their coverage started before the US admin leapt on it as an opportunity to justify military action. You’re discounting a people’s movement against an authoritarian regime just because some other authoritarian regime is trying to use them opportunistically.