The protest movement in Iran is not giving up. So far, the uprisings of recent years have been brutally suppressed by the regime. Would it be different this time? The protests are special in their own way, explains Islam researcher Walter Posch in the conversation on krone.tv with Jana Pasching. Something had happened that had never happened before in this obvious way. “A real solidarity far beyond the boundaries of denomination, gender and ethnicity, which has not existed in this clear way until now.” And: “The choice of the regime now could be to strike, I assume that will happen.” This does not trivialize the problem: “You could not solve an ideological problem that women forcibly remove their headscarves. When it comes to the ethnic groups, it seems that the formerly peaceful Sunni groups – after all, a third of the population in Iran – will no longer be so peaceful.”
The headscarf protests are mainly about freedom of choice. That is also why the regime has not yet fully struck for all its brutality, because that is also the mainstream among Islamists, Posch explains. “They say I wear a headscarf and don’t force anyone else.” It is a real ideological crisis in Iran. Behind it is only one element in the regime, which also consciously provides the moral police, saying: “The forced headscarf is also a sign of our power.” This element is already fed up nationally, says Posch.
The second element is that it has taken on denominational dimensions. Iran’s Sunni Muslims, the religious leaders, complain bitterly about the cleric and state leader Ayatolla Ali Khamenei, about the administration and about the discrimination. “A third of the country is Sunni and no Sunni is allowed to hold a leadership position in the police. You have been excluded from the security apparatus from the start,” said the expert.
“Society is further than the regime wants to admit”
The third point is also ethnic. All Sunni ethnic groups have no one in Tehran to intercede for them. In the case of Mahsa Amini, all three elements came together: she was Kurdish, Sunni and a woman. This strong solidarity between Kurds and Sunnis is unusual in the protests in Iran. “Here you actually see that the progress of Iranian society is much further than the regime wants to admit.”
„attack without an embassy in istanbul is irritating“
According to the Islam researcher, it is very unusual for the PKK workers’ party to deny any responsibility for the attack in Istanbul. “Attacks mean that a message has been proclaimed and it is missing at the moment, that is the annoying thing.” You would expect an explanation from Islamists, from left-wing extremists or from the PKK. There are two possibilities here: “Either they really have nothing to do with it, or they are nowhere near as cohesive, stable and closed as they used to be.”
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Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
