12/01/2020
Iran has faced the most brutal crackdown in recent history, initially with gasoline subsidies cut and increased by up to 300%, amid a crippling global economy and high inflation, culminating in widespread demonstrations and riots and subsequently by a crackdown with between 300 and 1,500 people killed and more than 8,000 arrests.
The protests that have erupted across Iran since November 15, 2019 mark the second round of nationwide protests in Iran in the past two years.
The Islamic Republic needs the revenue from the increase in the price of gasoline to cover its budget deficit, but which is also part of a macroeconomic and structural program of the State to eliminate subsidies, liberalize prices, apply economic adjustments and privatizing previously public services such as education and health.
Years of economic mismanagement, corruption and the effects of US sanctions on Iran’s economy are impacting the lives of Iranians and this is the main driver of the current protests.
As with the 2018 protests in Iran, economic concerns over rising prices are giving rise to political demands, with slogans such as “Death to the Islamic Republic”, “Death to Khamenei”, “The Oil Review is missing, it is spent in Basijis”, “The mullahs are lost”, “Khamenei is lost” and “We will fight, we will die, we will take back Iran”.
This tendency for slogans chanted in protests to become increasingly political is common in recent years in Iran, where economic and working conditions grievances have become politicized.
The movement in Iran is set to continue after ongoing protests over gas prices, with union structures linking widespread protests in 2018 to those in 2019 and likely to ensure its continuity.
This, together with the most recent events at the start of 2020, calls for a return to the socio-political contradictions of contemporary Iran that can support reflections and analyses.
January 12, 2020
14:00-17:00 | Auditorium
DOC! Art Association
26, Rue du Doctor Potain – 75019 Paris
“Uprisings: The sociopolitical contradictions of contemporary Iran from a historical perspective. Iran between integration and isolation”
Lecture by Morad Farhadpour (Porsesh Institute / Thesis 11)
Contact: infopolitical-studies.net