As details of the death toll for January’s protests continue to emerge, three students explain why they are resisting a return to normality
More than 45 days after a brutal January crackdown that left thousands of Iranian protesters dead, students across several universities are protesting again. As Iran’s new academic term began on Saturday, students in Tehran gathered on campus, chanting anti-government slogans, despite a heavy security presence and plainclothes officers stationed outside university gates.
The Guardian spoke to protesting students about why they were rallying despite the fact that thousands had been killed and tens of thousands arrested in the January demonstrations.
“Our classrooms are empty because the graveyards are full,” said Hossein*, 21, a student at the University of Tehran. “It’s for them – our friends, classmates and compatriots, who were gunned down in front of our eyes, that we decided to boycott the classes.”
The protests are good and justified, all power to the Iranian people. Iran deserves a second revolution, after the first one was taken over by the Mullahs for their own goals.
But it’s genuinely disheartening how readily nominally progressive spaces are jumping abord the manufactured consent for an imperialist military intervention by Israel and the US.
How, exactly, will bombing Iranian cities help their liberation? Or even if they succeed with deposing the Mullah regime, is anyone really expecting self determination by the Iranian people afterwards? We’re seen how the Shar’s son is pushed as the next US puppet government by US- and Israeli media (and their European allies).
The Iranian people, not just the current regime, are supportive of Palestine, and Israel and the US absolutely cannot accept that. Don’t cheer for imperialist intervention.
at this point I’m don’t understand it but I can see it as a possible future for a lot of Latin America
we are watching in real time how Venezuela is transforming into a US colony
right now Fidel’s grandson is allegedly making deals with the US gov (while the US asks Mexico to stop any deals involving gas with Cuba)
and here in Mexico the state is so corrupt and the US propaganda is running strong for an intervention like the one in Venezuela (and what happened yesterday just made it worse)
The american savages are drooling at the prospect of colonizing Latin America as part of their future war effort with china. They will plant propaganda everywhere to steal from the global south as the death throes of their crumbling empire.
How, exactly, will bombing Iranian cities help their liberation?
Same way that kidnapping Maduro liberates Venezuela. And embargoing gasoline liberates Cuba. And sending ground troops into Denmark liberates Greenland.
The Iranian people, not just the current regime, are supportive of Palestine, and Israel and the US absolutely cannot accept that.
Under Shah Reza Pahlavi, they will crush Hamas and Hezbollah, defeat ISIS, and end Woke Gay Iranian Antifa once and for all.
I think most people are hoping for an attack on military targets like last year. No-one is calling for “bombing cities”. That’s a tankie fantasy. A fantankasy
People said the exact same thing about Libya in 2011. ‘Just military targets.’ ‘Just a no-fly zone.’ It’s genuinely impressive how the same script can be rolled out over and over.
What it actually meant was destroying Libya’s air defenses and command systems. Once that was done, NATO pushed regime change, the state collapsed, and the country was handed over to militias, foreign powers, and jihadist groups. That’s the model.
When people say ‘only military targets,’ they’re repeating the same script. You don’t bomb a country’s defenses unless your goal is to weaken it. Once that happens, it’s open season: invasion, proxy forces, destabilization. These strikes are never isolated. They’re step one.
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What? You don’t believe “Hossein, 21”, they named him and everything! You want to see actual evidence! You can’t believe that I’m 2026 not a single person recorded a video of said massacres on their phone?
It’s insane. Gaza is over two years of bombing turning it into a parking lot. Like, many people have been killed in Iran during the recent months. It’s just gross to report numbers that are not physically possible.
I saw one report that MORE than 80,000 in 2 days. The last time that many people died in such a short amount of time was when we dropped two nuclear weapons on Japan. Did Iran nuke itself? Like, how can anyone print that number?
Not to mention, the solution to this is apparently for the US and Israel to do exactly what Israel did to Gaza to Iran.
Edit: Everyone just purposely misunderstanding my comment below.
(1) I never said or implied the 80k number was from a credible source.
(2) I sure as hell never said it was the guardian.
(3) Pointing to “more” credible sources on the numbers is not related to my comment. All sources at this point are SIGNIFICANTLY less credible than the very conservative “Hamas Run Health” numbers that all of you libs discredited for over a year. Stop getting excited at death tolls that, at this point, only serve to justify MORE death at the hands of US intervention.
(4) Any number printed by western media or it’s organizations should be questioned BECAUSE of their aligned interest with Israel and the interest of American Imperialism. Iran is NOT a US Ally like Israel. Any coverage of its REAL human rights violations will be reported in the same way it would Hamas.
(5) The Iranian people are my concern. The people using “death tolls” to further US intervention are the same idiots that would have supported the invasion of Iraq. And yes, this includes the “sources” inside Iran begging Trump to come bomb their country with freedom.
I was literally simply saying that at the time of the protests and Internet blackouts that the media went spreading unverified numbers to grab clicks. One of which had it as high as 80k. A number spread on social media and printed as a “some say” in garbage outlets that just wanted to get clicks for numbers.
I provided two sources of this bogus claim below. And I never meant it more than a comment about how false information spreads online. Especially when it favors the narrative of a demented old man we call a president.
Fucking liberals are are so war hungry that they are more focused on nitpicking a comment critizing the spread of pro war propaganda that they’ll be upset when you point it out.
I was in the same spot in 2023 trying to explain what lead to October 7th. In 2-3 years maybe you’ll understand why you should be critical of any reports and justifications for US intervention. Whether that number is 20k or 80k. You’re missing the fucking point.
DOES USA INTERVENTION MAKE IRANIANS LIVES BETTER?
Iraq and many other countries can tell you that answer.
Dude. The war mongers jumped on this thread. When I initially replied to your comment it was top. Lemmy is becoming like reddit. It’s fucking pathetic how many “anti trump” libs are onboard with bombing a country into freedom.
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“But we know the regime can no longer kill students on campus and call us terrorists … We are not afraid of losing our lives. We all are willing to put our lives on the line so at least the next generations of this country will live in freedom and peace.”
Very great to hear and gives me so much hope for the future.
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The AI generated protest images are pretty spot on as well
May Iran become an Islamic Kingdom again.
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The US killed 500k children in Iraq and when asked about it our political leadership said they would do it again because it was worth it
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Why are you referring to the US’s treatment of its own citizens when its entire history has been the history of limiting its definition of “in-group” so that it can commit mass murder of everyone else? Why not refer to the US treatment of the country’s inhabitants, like the indigenous populations, the migrant workers, the asylum seekers?
By limiting your frame to only the predominantly white, predominantly “middle class”, you are playing into the narrative that allows the US to go around killing millions. Because you think the US is not as bad as Iran, you create the political conditions for the US to be considered a legitimate nation with real interests and intentions that matter. The truth is that the US is built on genocide and slavery, has always been built on genocide and slavery, and continues to engage in genocide and slavery. The US is far and away worse than Iran.
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I want the privilege to ignore the US imperialism
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yeah i forgot the world revolves around the english language i beg your pardon good sir im going back to only speaking my inferior native language
vas y chiflas a tu perra mouser imaginate llamarte alonso y cagarle a alguien por escribir mal el ingles
The us is complete utter shit.
Yawn more Western propaganda to justify war against Iran.
300 cops were killed by these “peaceful protesters”.
Iran literally sentencing kids to death and you’re saying this shit? You’re getting paid or smt?
Iran literally sentencing kids to death
This isn’t novel to Iran. The US was sentencing minors to execution until as recently as 2005, when the SCOTUS struck down junivenille executions in Roper v. Simmons.
And that was under a relatively liberal majority. No way Roper would have gone 5-4 under a Roberts court.
Two 17 year old terrorists magically become children.
Those 300 cops must have killed themselves.
Ehsan Hosseinipour Hesarloo, 18, Matin Mohammadi and Erfan Amiri, both 17, are undergoing a fast-tracked, torture-tainted grossly unfair trial before Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran for alleged involvement in an 8 January 2026 fire at a Basij base inside a mosque in Pakdasht, Tehran province, that killed two Basij agent
So they literally killed police and burned down mosques.
Amnesty is an imperialist propaganda organisation which has repeated the debunked Hamas rape hoax. They will paste any Zionist propaganda they are asked on their frontpage.
Yawn more Western propaganda to justify war against Iran.
I mean, it can be both. The Iranian government has been an oppressive theocratic reactionary force practically since day one of the revolution. They rejected socialist reforms and partnered with Ronald fucking Reagan to start a turf war with Iraq using chemical weapons. They’ve flubbed any effective containment of Israel, failed to integrate their economy with Pakistan or Turkiye or Afghanistan, gave up backing Yemen, and never finished their nuclear deterrent.
The current crisis they’re in wasn’t unforeseeable. But when even Ahmadinejad is too far left for your Guardian Council, it locks you into a dark future.
We can keep talking about dumb stuff Iran did 50 years ago but Khamenei is already dead. Iran is currently the only major party fighting Israel and standing for human rights and against genocide.
Saying they have failed to contain Israel is laughable. The entire American air force is on Irans doorstep because they have been so effective in containing Israel. Pakistan and Turkiye are led by unreliable NATO slaves there is no stable partnership to build with them.
Yemen is still receiving Iranian weapons and has defeated the US air force last year with them while lobbing missiles at Israel.
Pezeshkian is their current president and he is a reformist. The reformists are the reason that Iran does not have nukes right now.
Iran is currently the only major party fighting Israel
No, they aren’t. They’re rolling over for Israel time and time again.
They withdraw support from Hezbollah, from the Houthis in Yemen, and from the Taliban in Afghanistan for a few temporary sanctions suspensions. They actively collaborate with Israel’s friends in Russia and Saudi Arabia. They collaborated with the fucking Americans during the initial Iraq War. They crack down on their own domestic civilians when those populations want more aggressive Palestinian support. They’ve been “six months from producing a nuclear weapon” for thirty fucking years.
Yemen is still receiving Iranian weapons
The only thing they know how to do to Israel is to fire Warning Shots. Over and over and over again. Even as Israelis butcher their people at home and abroad.
They aren’t fighting them in any material sense.
The Iraq war is 20 years in the past it is no longer relevant. Bigger recent human rights abuses from Iran came from their support from Assad. But now that Assad is gone a US slave has taken his place so that is double sided.
Iran supports the resistance behind the scenes not in front of it like Yemen. I would love for Iran to actively start shelling Israel, they have during the 12 day war, but they are already doing a million times more than every other country worldwide such as China which is actively helping Israel colonize the West Bank.
I clicked your Houthi link and it is one of those anti Houthi propaganda websites. Becomes rather obvious when you go to their front page. I hope you reconsider your sources.
Iran supports the resistance behind the scenes not in front of it like Yemen.
That stopped being true years ago. They’ve fully retreated from the regional stage.
they are already doing a million times more than every other country worldwide
They’re unable to keep the water flowing and the lights on, because they keep trying to make deals with Western imperialists and getting played
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/07/22/post-12-day-war-iran-continues-to-invest-in-the-houthis/
Iran is sanctioned because it does not bow for Israel. That is the entire reason.
I’m sure the cops were equally as ‘peaceful’ as the protesters and didn’t go and kill a few tens of thousands of them.
Shit gets violent under a fanatic totalitarian regime.
It is amazing the amount of mental gymnastics people are willing to do to justify American and Israeli backed terrorism. Iran tolerated the protests until terrorists started shooting with AK’s and shotguns. The terrorists also shot many civilians because they know that you will blame every single death they cause on the Iranian government.
What the fuck?
based
But yeah, it is warmongering propaganda.
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I will try to explain. Protesting allows to determine how many are generally “on board” with an idea. If you protest and you see that you have a supermajority (e.g. 90%) the point is moot, then the armed services are likely also on your side (e.g. USSR in 1991).
The next step, changing the government, usually requires a bit of force. It can take two typical forms:
a) people overcome cops while the army does nothing
b) units of the army rebel and overcome cops
c) units of the army fight each other in a civil war
Now, as you may guess, option C is pretty bad - weaponry made for international defense gets unleashed internally with no clear lines of conflict. But option A is pretty tame and B can be reasonably quick and bloodless.
It all starts with a show of hands, and an evaluation of how many are OK with a plan - inside a group and between groups. If too few show up, one knows the time is wrong. If a modest amount show up, one knows to be careful. And so forth.
That’s literally how eastern Germany got rid of their government. And yes, people got killed. But in the end they succeed. There was absolutely no chance for a violent coup if this is what you’re implying. The government and the Soviet Union would have crushed that immediately.
Good book on this if you actually want to know why it’s good to protest even in authoritarian countries https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/453761/when-everyone-knows-that-everyone-knows-by-pinker-steven/9780241618820
After 40 days, as expected. Trump now has his public excuse to attack. I don’t know what to think of all this.
William Spaniel, Lines on Maps on YouTube, tried to break it down in a couple of videos.
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I mean, a large portion of Lemmy is Russians.
I find it the funniest when actual Russians like Davel@lemmy.ml, pretend to be Americans and go “why would Russian propaganda even care about something as small as lemmy?” Oh hmm let me think, an open unregulated and uncontrolled platform for spreading whatever, whenever and how much ever, why would that interest anyone pushing an agenda hmmm…
It’s crazy how many people defend these propaganda bots
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A non-insignificant portion are Russians pretending to be Americans.
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Look at profiles like Davel@lemmy.ml
Literally pretending to be a red-blooded American while doing comments like “reality has a well known Russian propaganda-bias”, and having several comments on his profiles in fluent Russian.
If you were a Russian online in today’s atmosphere, would you admit to it, or pretend to be from another country?
No matter how much I’d like to make up shit against Russia, there’s no need. Unlike Russians, we Finns don’t feel the need to lie for our despotic leader. Mainly because we don’t have one. Haven’t had one since 1809 pretty much. Well, arguably a bit from 1809 to 1917, but I wouldn’t make that argument.
So yeah. Feel like reasoning your feelings out at all? Could help others figure out what you’re thinking.
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Oh, getting a bit mad, huh? Where were you born and raised?
A whole essay shifting your goalposts. You said I’m making up Russians pretending to be Americans. I give you a every clear example, and you just kick off a tantrum about how “European propaganda” this and that. Clearly setting sort of teams here. And implying I’m on one (European) and by implication that you’re on another.
I’m really not up to writing an essay where I answer all your whataboutism and shitty implications.
If you’re pretending like “European propaganda” exists, that there’s some hegemonic culture which unites all the countries and thus all their intelligence apparatuses as well and they share coordinated disinformation campaigns equal to those of Russia? Get fucked, you know how ridiculous of a notion that is. Europe isn’t a hegemony, unlike Russia, which is absolutely infamous for its disinformation campaigns, all over the world. Objectively.
As social media gained prominence in the 2010s, Russia began to use platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube to spread disinformation. Russian web brigades and bots, typically operated by Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA), were commonly used to disseminate disinformation throughout these social media channels.[24] In late 2017 Facebook estimated that as many as 126 million of its users had seen content from Russian disinformation campaigns on its platform.[25] Twitter stated that it had found 36,000 Russian bots spreading tweets related to the 2016 United States elections.[26] Russia has used social media to destabilize former Soviet states such as Ukraine and Western nations such as France and Spain.[27] It has been suggested that since 2019, Russian-sponsored troll accounts and bots have formed and taken over prominent left-wing and right-wing subreddits on Reddit, such as the antiwar, greenandpleasant, and aboringdystopia subreddits, “suggest[ing] a Russian-led attempt to antagonize and influence Americans online, which is still ongoing.”[28] Canadian subreddits have also been directly targeted by Russia. [29]
Social media companies have moved to limit Russian disinformation on their platforms. In October 2019, Facebook moved to take down accounts connected to Yevgeny Prigozhin used to interfere with African political affairs.[30] Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council at the time, said Russia’s aim is to make its presence felt in the same way it did during the Cold War, but with a much smaller investment using disinformation campaigns.[30] In 2020, the United States State Department identified several “proxy sites” used by Russian state actors “to create and amplify false narratives”. These sites include the Strategic Culture Foundation, New Eastern Outlook, Crimea-based news agency NewsFront, and SouthFront, a website targeted at “military enthusiasts, veterans, and conspiracy theorists”.[31] Russian influence operations, such as the Pravda network, have increasingly spread content that serves as training data for large language models in order to influence the output produced
OP actually has hundreds (thousands?) of comments over the past few years, but all but the most recent are listed as deleted by creator. I won’t speculate as to the reason for this, but just note that their current comment count doesn’t reflect their historical contributions.
I’ll also just leave this quote from one of the comment chains they’ve recently commented on:
@MicroWave@lemmy.world I just want to say thanks for posting quality links so frequently. You’re one of the few who isn’t posting click bait junk like Raw Story and Daily Beast.
I don’t personally keep track, but it seems some others do feel they make valuable contributions. I for one don’t want to see anyone too quick to torch the relative few individuals putting content on Lemmy.
Thanks for this comment. News about Iran seems to bring out extreme personalities lately it seems like.
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Propaganda bot for posting The Guardian? You’re ok?
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OK then be this way
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