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.”
The biggest death toll in the Iraq war didn’t come from the US explicitly bombing civilians, it came from the US destroying the infrastructure and military of Iraq, leading to a failed state which melted the economy, led millions to destitute poverty, and created the conditions for the appearance of ISIS.
The US doesn’t need to bomb civilians to murder them, they already murder half a million civilians worldwide every single year through economic sanctions, in which Iran is plastered.
Well no. The biggest death toll in the Iraq Adventure ® came from the civil war that erupted between (mainly) Sunni and Shia militias. Instead of singing kumbaya and rebuilding the country together they started murdering eachother to settle old scores and try to grab power. Which is to be expected, and was expected, actually.
But that doesn’t mean that should be the final argument in the question of how you help a people liberate themselves from their oppressors, as that would just mean you accept the status quo and the fact the oppressors won.
Honestly, fuck you for playing dumb and doing propaganda for the empire. Zionist scum, vile piece of fascist garbage, white supremacist imbecile. You know what you’re doing.