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.”
How is OP not banned? 18k posts which exclusively seem to be news, 5 comments, it’s literally a propaganda bot, what the fuck!
Propaganda bot for posting The Guardian? You’re ok?
18k news posts, most of them from genocide-complicit western Zionist media
OK then be this way
Huh?
OP actually has hundreds (thousands?) of comments over the past few years, but all but the most recent are listed as deleted by creator. I won’t speculate as to the reason for this, but just note that their current comment count doesn’t reflect their historical contributions.
I’ll also just leave this quote from one of the comment chains they’ve recently commented on:
@MicroWave@lemmy.world I just want to say thanks for posting quality links so frequently. You’re one of the few who isn’t posting click bait junk like Raw Story and Daily Beast.
I don’t personally keep track, but it seems some others do feel they make valuable contributions. I for one don’t want to see anyone too quick to torch the relative few individuals putting content on Lemmy.
Thanks for this comment. News about Iran seems to bring out extreme personalities lately it seems like.
I can’t fathom how, after the disgrace that western media has proven to be during the “Israeli” genocide of Palestinians, posting unending links to western mass-media can be considered a positive and not a tool of brainwashing.
Yawn more Western propaganda to justify war against Iran.
300 cops were killed by these “peaceful protesters”.
Iran literally sentencing kids to death and you’re saying this shit? You’re getting paid or smt?
“But we know the regime can no longer kill students on campus and call us terrorists … We are not afraid of losing our lives. We all are willing to put our lives on the line so at least the next generations of this country will live in freedom and peace.”
Very great to hear and gives me so much hope for the future.
May Iran become an Islamic Kingdom again.
The protests are good and justified, all power to the Iranian people. Iran deserves a second revolution, after the first one was taken over by the Mullahs for their own goals.
But it’s genuinely disheartening how readily nominally progressive spaces are jumping abord the manufactured consent for an imperialist military intervention by Israel and the US.
How, exactly, will bombing Iranian cities help their liberation? Or even if they succeed with deposing the Mullah regime, is anyone really expecting self determination by the Iranian people afterwards? We’re seen how the Shar’s son is pushed as the next US puppet government by US- and Israeli media (and their European allies).
The Iranian people, not just the current regime, are supportive of Palestine, and Israel and the US absolutely cannot accept that. Don’t cheer for imperialist intervention.
at this point I’m don’t understand it but I can see it as a possible future for a lot of Latin America
we are watching in real time how Venezuela is transforming into a US colony
right now Fidel’s grandson is allegedly making deals with the US gov (while the US asks Mexico to stop any deals involving gas with Cuba)
and here in Mexico the state is so corrupt and the US propaganda is running strong for an intervention like the one in Venezuela (and what happened yesterday just made it worse)
The american savages are drooling at the prospect of colonizing Latin America as part of their future war effort with china. They will plant propaganda everywhere to steal from the global south as the death throes of their crumbling empire.
But it’s genuinely disheartening how readily nominally progressive spaces are jumping abord the manufactured consent for an imperialist military intervention by Israel and the US.
Please provide evidence where this generally left-of-centre british reporting is “manufacturing consent”. Which text lines do you think are trying to make us readers agree to that kind of action by these two states?
Left of centre
The guardian.
I’m not sure you know what it means to be left of centre.
From the Wikipedia article of Atrocity Propaganda (I added emphasis):
Atrocity propaganda is the spreading of information about the crimes committed by an enemy, which can be factual, but often includes or features deliberate fabrications or exaggerations. This can involve photographs, videos, illustrations, interviews, and other forms of information presentation or reporting
“The inherently violent nature of war means that exaggeration and invention of atrocities often becomes the main staple of propaganda. Patriotism is often not enough to make people hate the enemy, and propaganda is also necessary”
The application of atrocity propaganda is not limited to times of conflict but can be implemented to sway public opinion and create a casus belli to declare war
Nice wiki quote. Now show me, where this applies to the article.
From the text in the post, I’ve added emphasis:
‘Our classrooms are empty because the graveyards are full’: Iran’s students on why they are protesting again
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.”
There is literally not one paragraph in the post text without atrocity propaganda, some paragraphs with several cases. Are you being purposefully obtuse?
They are spreading details about the crimes committed by the enemy, whether factual or not, and this can serve to justify a casus belli. It’s literally the definition of atrocity propaganda.
You’d need to show how this is more than simply reporting events and the POV of participants. You’d have to show how the intention is propaganda, how the article manipulates the reader, etc. You’d need to show how this differs from the reporting of ICE crimes, for example.
And then you’d need to show how the article tries to convince me that a US military intervention would be something I as a european should support.
I feel like so many on this post just think we should cease all reporting about Bad Things because the reporting could be used as propaganda to those who lack the ability to think critically.
Smh so many slow people around today.
And then you’d need to show how the article tries to convince me that a US military intervention would be something I as a european should support.
You, as a european, are not the target demographic.
Who is, according to you?
Reporting ICE crimes is also atrocity propaganda. Propaganda doesn’t mean it’s bad, it just means you’re swaying public opinion. I believe that spreading anti-ICE propaganda is good because ICE are a bunch of fascist pigs, I believe that propagating anti-Iran propaganda in the context of the military buildup against Iran is bad because it serves to justify the casus belli and the upcoming military invasion.
it just means you’re swaying public opinion.
How exactly is this article doing this?
Propaganda is communication that is primaroly used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda. Methods to do so would be using selective facts, loaded language, etc so the audience does not come to a rational conclusion but a fabricated one.
Which facts does the article leave out, where does the article use loaded language, which effects do these parts have and how does that make me, a european, want the US go to war on Iran?
I think most people are hoping for an attack on military targets like last year. No-one is calling for “bombing cities”. That’s a tankie fantasy. A fantankasy
People said the exact same thing about Libya in 2011. ‘Just military targets.’ ‘Just a no-fly zone.’ It’s genuinely impressive how the same script can be rolled out over and over.
What it actually meant was destroying Libya’s air defenses and command systems. Once that was done, NATO pushed regime change, the state collapsed, and the country was handed over to militias, foreign powers, and jihadist groups. That’s the model.
When people say ‘only military targets,’ they’re repeating the same script. You don’t bomb a country’s defenses unless your goal is to weaken it. Once that happens, it’s open season: invasion, proxy forces, destabilization. These strikes are never isolated. They’re step one.
Well you’re partly correct, in that you seem to agree that it is, indeed, possible to limit yourself to target military targets… Instead of it being a cover for ‘bombing cities’ which is what was claimed here.
But that’s separate from what happens in the vacuum later.
You can look at the support for the Kurds in Syria as a good counter example - arming them and giving them intel and air support helped them defeat IS. Or working together with the résistance in WW2 to defeat the nazi’s.
Syria? The country currently controlled by terrorists massacring minorities is a good example of what you want? Also the USSR did 90% of the work of defeating the Nazis while America continued to trade with and fund them through ford IBM and other enterprises. I think the US should just stop intervening but they never will as the massive violence and immiseration is necessary to sustain their empire.
I think you don’t have the slightest idea of what life would be like under the boot of IS (pretty comparable to Iran in most regards, imo) or even what life was like under Assad. Can you let me know how the current Syrian government is ‘massacring minorities’? Because that seems like quite the overstatement. Sure they’re islamists but Turkey seems to have the leash on pretty tight.
Funny tangent you’re going on in the second half. USSR kickstarted German conquests allying with them at the start of WW2. And when they were inevitably stabbed in the back they had to call on the US to supply them so they had a bit more than their bare hands to fight back. I’m sure you
can’tsee the resemblance to the situation the Iranian people find themselves in.USSR kickstarted German conquests allying with them at the start of WW2
Ah you’re one of these people. Ok conversation with you will not be productive. Continue believing what you want all the best.
Hey as I’m currently enjoying some WW2 flight sim, here’s a relevant fun fact to close with :-)
What plane did the top USSR ace use to kill most of his nazi’s?
Do you think the plane would have been able to do it without him in it?
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.
Fuck the Mullah dictatorship!!!
It is a terrible situation for everyone.
weapons of mass destruction ass consent manufacturing excuse. they meaning to tell me more people died in iran rn than gaza.
i don’t believe a word from murderous us media or their nazi leadership.
The Guardian is british.
Also it’s owned by a non-profit trust. As peak as you can really get when it comes journalistic integrity structures.
Oh well that’s a relief. British newspaper. The people that called bin Laden a freedom fighter. Totally not a mouth piece for war in the middle east.
and manufacturing consent for a us invasion of iran, yes.
That’s a claim you’d need to provide evidence for. Really, really good evidence.
TheGuardian claimed to have seen video and pictures of Hamas raping women on October 7.
Those videos and pictures later turned out to not exist.
I would believe anything regarding foreign policy coming from a bloodthirsty brit.
This is The Guardian, a left leaning paper or left of centre at least.
Here’s a detailed article on The Guardian being couped by Zionists:
How The Guardian’s editor-in-chief caved to pro-Israel pressure.
It’s unfathomable to me how, after western media carrying 3 years of endless Zionist propaganda, there’s still any modicum of respect for them among progressives.
no, you are the one who has to stop inventing shit to invade countries in your fascist crusade.
I am doing nothing. You are claiming bullshit and don’t even know jackshit about the news outlets you’re making up shit about.
Also, I’m not even from the US.
you are literally inventing shit to justify another genocide. burden of proof rests on you.
we are very aware of the guardian’s propaganda AND us terror campaigns (that begin with exactly this sort of lie).
What did I invent, exactly?
we are very aware of the guardian’s propaganda
Evidence or GTFO.
What? You don’t believe “Hossein, 21”, they named him and everything! You want to see actual evidence! You can’t believe that I’m 2026 not a single person recorded a video of said massacres on their phone?
The Iranian government cut off internet and satellite connections nationwide during the massacres. And some videos did still manage to leak out.
The Iranian government cut off satellite connections nationwide
That’s not how satellite connection works, though? The US smuggled 6000 starlink terminals into Iran.
Frequencies can be jammed, you know…
Not country-wide…
But in all the cities where it matters
You cannot frequency jam an entire city either bruv, the way they were preventing Starlink usage was by detecting emitted radio signals of that frequency and going in person to arrest the users and confiscate the equipment.
The internet has been back for a while now, and there’s no chance nobody could have leaked anything. Israel cut off internet power and was actively bombing every neighborhood of Gaza and footage still got out.
Don’t be silly.
Footage did get out of Iran, you just haven’t looked for it because then you’d have to reconsider your belief in the mullah’s moral pedestal
It’s insane. Gaza is over two years of bombing turning it into a parking lot. Like, many people have been killed in Iran during the recent months. It’s just gross to report numbers that are not physically possible.
I saw one report that MORE than 80,000 in 2 days. The last time that many people died in such a short amount of time was when we dropped two nuclear weapons on Japan. Did Iran nuke itself? Like, how can anyone print that number?
Not to mention, the solution to this is apparently for the US and Israel to do exactly what Israel did to Gaza to Iran.
Where did you get that report? Most I saw was 30k over 3 weeks
To be clear. I wasn’t saying it was credible.
https://x.com/i/status/2014484450315293173
This was the one going around at the time I was talking about. I know there were articles at the time citing this as evidence as well. But, it looks like that’s been purged from most articles.
I know that number was spoken on Fox News as well at some point. But I’d have to dig for the clip. Just the usual, “some reports saying as high as 80,000” vague propaganda from a guest interview.
Ok but you said you saw a report and now you’re linking me a tweet
Can you link us the actual report?
I’m not sure why you are acting like I’m the one that said there was a valid verifiable report of this. My initial comment was literally talking about how people were lying about the numbers and saying it was “reported as 80,000”
This was the propaganda going around Twitter. A “report” can literally just be someone from inside Iran reporting on it. Which is exactly what that tweet was.
Maybe I worded my comment poorly? I was pointing to the absurdity of a number like 80,000 being taken seriously. And now for some reason you want a verified report of that? I’m so confused.
Why would you say
how can anyone print that number?
when no one printed it?
You’re using it to back up someone saying we can’t “trust the murderous media” but it’s just lies
Look dude. Just because you were not paying attention to articles at the time doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
https://www.reddit.com/r/NewIran/s/mEVnnKEJ4w
This same shit was spreading around social media and many news outlets printed “some estimates inside Iran put the number at 80,000”.
It was bull shit and every single outlet that printed it has modified their reports since. I’m not sure why it’s so hard for you to believe that the media grabbed the largest number they could and ran with it for a day.
I’ve shown you where this number came from. It’s not “just a post on Twitter”. It was from inside the country during a total internet blackout. The media ate it up for a day because there was nothing else coming out of Iran at the time.
Why is this so hard to understand? What evidence are you looking for? Because it’s gonna be tweets or “way back machine” articles from Fox/NewsMax or Israeli newspapers. I’ll find them tonight if I have time. But you are just as capable of looking.
Yes, believe it or not, I made a comment about something that I literally saw happening in real time and didn’t bookmark. Fuck me right?
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So Iran’s inflation, food and water costs, blackouts and other problems weren’t casual whatsoever?
It all happened coz a bunch of university lecturer’s told their students to go uprise?
They were mostly caused by Trumps maximum pressure sanctions campaign which has been suffocating the economy for over a decade.
Iran has been under extreme sanctions for 45 years. Trump has intensified them prior to military invasion, yes, but the entire US government apparatus is complicit in the murder of hundreds of thousands if not millions of Iranians through economic deprivation.
Why do these idiots in authoritarian dictatorships always think that protesting the government will remove it? No, they’ll kill you. Learn your lesson. And by that I don’t mean giving up.
Good book on this if you actually want to know why it’s good to protest even in authoritarian countries https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/453761/when-everyone-knows-that-everyone-knows-by-pinker-steven/9780241618820
Wouldn’t you rather be dead than oppressed.
I will try to explain. Protesting allows to determine how many are generally “on board” with an idea. If you protest and you see that you have a supermajority (e.g. 90%) the point is moot, then the armed services are likely also on your side (e.g. USSR in 1991).
The next step, changing the government, usually requires a bit of force. It can take two typical forms:
a) people overcome cops while the army does nothing
b) units of the army rebel and overcome cops
c) units of the army fight each other in a civil war
Now, as you may guess, option C is pretty bad - weaponry made for international defense gets unleashed internally with no clear lines of conflict. But option A is pretty tame and B can be reasonably quick and bloodless.
It all starts with a show of hands, and an evaluation of how many are OK with a plan - inside a group and between groups. If too few show up, one knows the time is wrong. If a modest amount show up, one knows to be careful. And so forth.
Eventually, they will succeed. If you understand Iran’s demographics and the history behind those demographics, this is the logical conclusion. The mullahs’ days are numbered.
… All the more reason an invasion is all the more stupid. Iran is a problem that will deal with itself.
That’s literally how eastern Germany got rid of their government. And yes, people got killed. But in the end they succeed. There was absolutely no chance for a violent coup if this is what you’re implying. The government and the Soviet Union would have crushed that immediately.
“People” are genuinely trying to argue the US is just as bad or even worse.
The us is complete utter shit.
The US killed 500k children in Iraq and when asked about it our political leadership said they would do it again because it was worth it
As tragic as that is, I’m referring to US treatment of its own citizens.
The US has done more global damage to the world than any other nation in history, except maybe Israel because they are working together.
Why are you referring to the US’s treatment of its own citizens when its entire history has been the history of limiting its definition of “in-group” so that it can commit mass murder of everyone else? Why not refer to the US treatment of the country’s inhabitants, like the indigenous populations, the migrant workers, the asylum seekers?
By limiting your frame to only the predominantly white, predominantly “middle class”, you are playing into the narrative that allows the US to go around killing millions. Because you think the US is not as bad as Iran, you create the political conditions for the US to be considered a legitimate nation with real interests and intentions that matter. The truth is that the US is built on genocide and slavery, has always been built on genocide and slavery, and continues to engage in genocide and slavery. The US is far and away worse than Iran.
Ignored.
I want the privilege to ignore the US imperialism
You should stop ignoring your English teachers.
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Why is it the responsibility of the US? I’m old enough to remember being (rightfully) shunned for doing the same fucking shit in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Why did the US invade Afghanistan? Why did they invade Iraq?
Do you believe the US is considering a ground invasion of Iran?
(ps I don’t advocate it’s their responsibility, mainly arguing about opposing any intervention)
because of lies and oil as always. there wasnt any us intervention in the middle east in history that left the country better. evil fucking empire.
How do we improve things for the people of Iran?
By not subjecting them to criminal economics mic sanctions, which are known to murder more than half a million people yearly?
Why not use sanctions? What universal law is there that we cannot, under any circumstances, block economic interaction? Governments unable to block trade might be the ultimate capitalist dream but there’s no reason sane people should be forced into it.
What part of “US sanctions murder half a million people yearly” do you not understand or care about?
By respecting their agency.
by keeping your grubby arrogant hands off of it and stop lying about it. huge improvement already.
We don’t. Stop being a chauvinist. The Iranian people, together, improve things for themselves. Our responsibility is to dismantle the Western imperialist machine that has killed almost 40 million people in the last 50 years through sanctions alone
Why would I need to dismantle the Western machine and not the Iranian one?
Because you don’t live in Iran and it’s not your responsibility. Your responsibility, depending on where you live, is to dismantle the closest link to you in the chains that hold the world in imperial bondage, which is the Western machine helmed by the USA.
So you’re arguing that some interventions by the US that led to hundreds of thousands or millions of civilian deaths, long-term cancer and birth defects, total destruction of civilian infrastructure, and decades of neocolonial extraction are somehow justifiable?
Am I?
I [am] mainly arguing about opposing any intervention
Did your conversation also cover the fact that the CIA/MI5/the Mossad intentionally put those Islamic radicals in power?
On Aug. 19, 2013, the CIA publicly admitted for the first time its involvement in the 1953 coup against Iran’s elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.
The documents provided details of the CIA’s plan at the time, which was led by senior officer Kermit Roosevelt Jr., the grandson of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. Over the course of four days in August 1953, Roosevelt would orchestrate not one, but two attempts to destabilize the government of Iran, forever changing the relationship between the country and the U.S.
Mohammad Mossadegh was a beloved figure in Iran. During his tenure, he introduced a range of social and economic policies, the most significant being the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry. Great Britain had controlled Iran’s oil for decades through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. After months of talks the prime minister broke off negotiations and denied the British any further involvement in Iran’s oil industry. Britain then appealed to the United States for help, which eventually led the CIA to orchestrate the overthrow of Mossadegh and restore power to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran.
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/31/690363402/how-the-cia-overthrew-irans-democracy-in-four-days
Well, your copypaste doesn’t really say what you say it does but, yeah, even if that was the case how does it help the people of Iran?
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It ABSOLUTELY says what I say it says.
There aren’t too many sentences there. You can do this.
I get where you’re clumsily aiming at but the current situation is what it is. The Iranian people don’t gain shit when we limit ourselves to reciting history to eachother
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As an American I’ve long supported assisting rebels, but going to war is just as likely to backfire as it is to succeed.
As an American I’ve long supported assisting rebels
The best way to support Iranians would be to mass-protest against the US-imposed economic sanctions demolishing their economy. US economic sanctions murder half a million people yearly, per latest medical studies.
Well you can give the small arms but then they’re up against an advanced military. They basically don’t stand a chance without at least air support
If you let them get nukes it’s basically game over
The US does that when it wants to create a civil war where previously there was no civil war. Civil wars are great for neocolonial intervention. You pump arms into the weaker side. They start killing. The whole defense complex now has to manage its existing counter-intelligence program against the US but now they also have an active hot conflict domestically. Lots of military-capable people die. Then the neocolonial empire comes in once the chaos has weakened everyone and they save the day!
There’s no civil war because the Iranian regime kills everyone that poses a threat. People are taking to the streets to demand basic rights and they get shot in the head by the thousands.
How do you suggest the Iranian people get out of this situation?
Again, I ask, why does the responsibility always default to the US? Why?
Responsibility?
By coming together with their government to defeat the imperialists?
Start shooting protestors and hanging gays?
Find and expose the foreign spies operating in Iran, continue to advocate on the world stage for the end to the crimes against humanity that are the collective punishment of sanctions, and engage in mutual aid to reduce the suffering caused by the crimes against humanity that are the collective punishment of sanctions.
What they shouldn’t do is align their interests with the US and Israel for the violent overthrow of the anti-imperialist Iranian government.
Disgusting sentiment
After 40 days, as expected. Trump now has his public excuse to attack. I don’t know what to think of all this.
William Spaniel, Lines on Maps on YouTube, tried to break it down in a couple of videos.
Very real protests, everyone. Protesters can be seen with signs in perfect English that read, “please save us, oh righteous Israeli Mossad.”
The AI generated protest images are pretty spot on as well
