Iran: Storm warning for the Islamic Republic
The Women, Life, Freedom uprising has profoundly shaken the foundations of Iran’s Islamic Republic. Regional defeats, including the weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the fall of the dictator Assad, have further weakened the regime in Tehran. With the social and economic crisis into which the country is sinking, the very survival of the Islamic Republic is at stake.
With galloping hyperinflation, the collapse of the national currency, gas and electricity shortages, regular production stoppages and untimely closures of factories and administrations, the entire economy has been hit by an unprecedented crisis. Although Iran has the world’s second-largest gas reserves and third-largest oil reserves, the population lacks everything: more than 60 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Unpaid wages are on the increase.
In 2024, 2,396 demonstrations and 169 strikes were recorded. Due to censorship, these figures are undoubtedly lower than the reality. These protests by workers of all categories (teachers, nurses, manual workers, municipal employees, pensioners, etc.) and from all sectors, including the strategic petrochemicals industry, took place in all 31 regions of the country. The demands concerned wages, social protection, pensions, employment contracts and the abolition of daily working hours.
The Islamic Republic, a capitalist and theocratic dictatorship, responded with systematic brutality. The regime’s first weapon is to continue to ban the right to organise and form trade unions. The authorities are seeking to prevent any structuring or coordination of social protest. Worker activists are constantly being arrested and sentenced. Often dismissed from their jobs, they are subjected to intimidation and various forms of pressure regularly during their detention and when they are released.
Faced with regional defeats, the social crisis and the struggles, the Islamic Republic has tried in recent weeks to flex its muscles by conducting military manoeuvres designed to dissuade the colonialist state of Israel and US imperialism from attacking Iran. At the same time, it has deployed Basij militias in the streets to create a climate of fear—a clear message to those who constantly challenge the authorities.
But these gesticulations do not put an end to mobilisations, acts of civil disobedience, or collective or individual resistance. The assassination in broad daylight of two Supreme Court judges on 18 January testifies to the fragility of the government. Known for their summary trials of opponents and directly responsible for the execution of many political prisoners, no-one will mourn the deaths of Judges Razini and Moghisseh.
Every time the regime fears for its survival, its violence against its opponents becomes more ferocious. In 2024, the Islamic Republic murdered more than 900 prisoners. And since the northern autumn, the authorities have even stepped up the pace, executing more than three prisoners a day.
Kurds and Baluchis are the first victims, demonstrating the systemic racism of the regime. Fifty-one prisoners of conscience are on death row. Campaigns against the death penalty are organised from inside the prisons themselves, before spreading outside the country. This is particularly the case for Varisheh Moradi and Pakhshan Azizi, two Kurdish activists for whom various appeals and petitions are circulating. A well-attended one-day general strike was called in Kurdistan on 22 January to protest against their sentencing.
Against the capitalist and obscurantist regime of the mullahs, which is showing many signs of weakness, it is important to develop support here and now for those who are fighting for social justice, democracy, gender equality and the defence of national and religious minorities.
It is high time to put an end to the Islamic Republic. To achieve this, the youth, women, workers and peoples of Iran need international solidarity. The fall of the regime through a popular victory and without imperialist interference would be a tremendous encouragement for all the peoples of the region and the world.
Reprinted from InternationalViewpoint.org
