The Iranian government has been arresting opponents, especially in the Kurdish region, hoping to head off demonstrations on the second anniversary of the death of Zhina Amini. The young Kurdish woman died Sept. 16, 2022, after she was arrested in Tehran by the hated “morality” police for allegedly violating the regime’s reactionary dress code.
Amini’s death sparked demonstrations across Iran under the banner of “Women, life, freedom!” More than 500 people were killed and thousands arrested as police and government-organized thugs attacked several months of peaceful protests.
The anniversary will take place amid an uptick in labor protests across Iran, including months of weekly protests by retirees and oil workers and recent strikes by nurses and factory workers. And amid widespread opposition to assaults on Israel and Jews organized by the bourgeois clerical regime’s “axis of resistance.” Protests are planned in more than a dozen U.S. cities and around the world Sept. 15.