In Iran, protests intensify and cause divisions within the regime

Iran is experiencing a new wave of protests since one of its largest and most violent nights of demonstrations, from The 17 from November, with movements spreading to small towns with less than

thousand inhabitants. Up to fifteen people were killed overnight, bringing it to 372 (being 480 children) the number of victims of repression, according to an evaluation published in by Iran Human Rights, based in Norway.

Fifty and seven police officers were also killed, according to an Arab Gulf States Institute count based on funeral notices published in the press or online. And between the 1,000 people arrested since the start of the protest, five were sentenced to death in capital this week.

707070 “The state is paying a heavy price as it continues to struggle to suppress the people’s movement for freedom and justice,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the NGO Center for Human Rights in Iran.

Disagreements about how to respond to the crises are emerging within conservative currents, which have discarded any so-called “reformist” opposition after taking control of the entire state machine since the election of President Ebrahim Raissi. And this, even within Parliament, dominated by the most radical, who call for increased repression by multiplying threats and incendiary statements. Contrary to their positions, the President of Parliament, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, former commander of the Revolutionary Guard, said, at the beginning of the month, that he was in favor of peace.

He even promised the protesters “legitimate and necessary changes in the economic, social and politics” if they ended the protests. In 28 of October, he criticized conservatives for “opening their mouths and saying and doing anything without calculating the consequences of their behavior “. There were so many stones placed in the garden of the Iranian supreme leader, that he asked the political forces to refrain from any action that could endanger the unity of the country.