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Comment by amir734jj | Hacker News Reader

This protest is very different from previous protests. Look it up. Women in Iran are just tired of being oppressed and their movement is an embodiment of feminism. I'm an Iranian and unfortunately this protest hasn't received world wide attention in the news. This is a first time women taking the lead in protesting against this tyrannical regime.

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>this protest hasn't received world wide attention in the news

? Its on every news page I have looked up.

It’s on every pro-Ukrainian telegram channel I read (and I’m reading way too many), mostly in the context of comparing Iranian boldness to feeble Russian protests against the war.

It’s been in the news here (w-europe) a lot and in conversations with colleagues! I also think it’s a worldwide struggle for self determination for women, especially in countries that are run or dominated by men.

Here in Sweden this has also been on the national television news the last two days.

Hopefully this will somehow be a step towards more freedom in Iran.

I hope so. I have lived more of my life in the US than in Iran and I hope to go back and visit one day.

It's been on the BBC front page about a woman lead protest since a few days ago

Welcome news, for sure. It seems that Iranians are fierce people who are not afraid of protesting their government. Why do protests usually stall, though? Is it the virulence of the repression machine?

A legacy of social mistrust. USSR had the same exact feature. A variation on 'Everyone was dissatisfied, but no one trusted anyone else'. This is what keeps any regime in power even when the general population doesn't like them: fear of betrayals at personal and movement levels (in places reinforced by recent historic examples).

>This protest hasn't received world wide attention in the news

I'm in faraway Nigeria, and I'm seeing this stuff on the news much against my wishes even.

There have been daily reports on the Guardian website.

Iran is geographically two countries away from Israel, the country that clandestinely fomented similar riots/insurrections in 10+ other countries that border Israel during the Arab Spring. Furthermore, Israel has been greatly outspoken in its hatred of Iran and Iran's nuclear program, going so far as to deploy the most sophisticated cyberattack in history[1]. It would hardly be a conspiracy theory to pin this on Israel rather than women suddenly waking up and deciding to riot after thousands of years of oppression.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet

How many major protests have happened in Iran over the past ten years? That's actually a serious question. I remember big ones in 2019. Smaller ones since in the time before the current uprising. Some before 2019 as well. There's tremendous anger beneath the surface in Iran and it's not caused by Mossad.

Iran banned abortion in 1979. There's been a baby boom since. The country is lopsided towards young people. People who don't want the repressive government. They want women to live freely. Many of them want the gay people of their country treated equally. It's an insult to them to say this revolt isn't grassroots. There's so much anger from people who just want to live quiet, normal lives in freedom. Without the rule of clerics and morality police.

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if a Mossad and/or CIA agent on the ground in Tehran is providing some assistance. That's what they do in times of unrest in an unfriendly country. But "some assistance" is a far cry from fomenting. This is mainly an Iranian effort.

Edit: Missed the gay part. It’s more complicated than it looks. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_history_in_Iran . But while I agree there’s official repression, I heard an argument once that a gay person who keeps it private is capable of natural reproduction in iran, whereas in the modern western gay family, they have to go through surrogacy, which is not cheap and outprices some men, not sure if even common. So in this sense the percentage of gays in the US will shrink over time but they have good gay rights. The other is the Iranian government repression rarely comes into action. if a male is known to be gay by those around him, good chance he won’t get reported to government since the punishment is too extreme for anyone to bear it on their conscious, even if the person is truly religious, they prefer to be wrong, and if they are correct, government and the muslim law requires witnesses or conclusive evidence, otherwise defamation. Muslim law bans gays, it "happens" to ban defamation but not sure what is the punishment of the latter. So in this climate the way of loudly claiming gay rights on streets not only embarrasses one’s acquaintances since defiance of norms, it is actually self-sentencing. This is a tight bound, but there’s no law in iran or anywhere else I assume that forces men to marry anyone throughout their lives. There’s formal repression, less rights, but reality is also important.

At mild risk of getting downvoted.

At least in the last 10 years, the protests has been motivated by economic situation. people don’t like the government but they also remember how bad the last revolution was, iraq-iran war after it on top.

Iran’s banning of abortion matters far less than gov successfully promoting lower number of children through the 90s. Matters far less because numbers, easy to verify.

To add the economic situation is consequence of trump pulling out of the nuclear agreement, sanctioning, and democratic administration keeping the status quo.

@dang my other comment is dead. Flagged or not according to guidelines?

> It would hardly be a conspiracy theory to pin this on Israel rather than women suddenly waking up and deciding to riot after thousands of years of oppression.

Or, you know, it could be that Iranian women just want that freedom back that was taken from them some 40 years ago. It's not like they've had to cover their hair and follow islamist rules for all of history. If you have any trust in pictures left, go look it up. You'll find plenty of photos of Iranians looking very much like Westerners 70 years ago.

I understand the love for conspiracy theories, but this one is just lacking any effort.

Agreed. People are just tired.

Miriam Webster

Definition of conspiracy theory

: a theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators

You have no evidence that this is likely to be Israel. Just speculation. This is conspiracy theory by definition.

People are taking my comment out of context. I'm not saying that Israel is 100% for sure behind this. I'm offering an equally likely explanation in response to the individual above who concluded that this was definitely because women randomly decided that they'd had enough.

Was it actually Israel? Was it just angry women? Nobody truly knows, least of all me or GP.

There's been a gradual relaxing of adherance to the hijab in Iran for decades, and this year a woman was murdered because of her 'lax' hijab. You are entertaining the idea that this _could_ be an israeli plot, which you don't have evidence for, alongside the idea it's just "angry women". So yes, even _with_ the context, it sounds a lot like you're spouting conspiracy theories behind a veil of "but I'm just asking _'what if'_?"

This has been going on for many years in the Middle East:

https://gulfnews.com/world/americas/the-new-middle-east-and-...

"Randomly", after a woman died after being taken into custody by the moral police. But sure, it's "equally likely" that Israel somehow sprinkled the rebellion-seeds over Iran and now the women are rising up. Totally just as likely.

uhm —- even if israel is fanning the flames of this, so what?

Isn’t that called state sponsored terrorism?

not really terrorism is it. just state sponsored?

how? are you defending the iranian theocracy?

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