World Tour: A breaking point

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Iran’s ongoing uprising.

Protesters are still out on the streets across Iranian provinces, and despite the Islamic republic’s heavy-handed crackdown, protesters remain defiant.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: For this week’s World Tour, Onize Oduah reports on what’s driving the unrest.

SOUND: Protesters cheering

ONIZE ODUAH: Late last month, protesters began gathering on the streets of Iran, chanting anti-government slogans and calling for the ouster of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The protests began on December 28th after shopkeepers in Tehran shut their doors to protest the falling currency.

The prices of staples like meat and rice have also skyrocketed.

SOUND: Protesters singing

The protests have now grown into a major challenge to Iran’s leadership. More than 600 protesters have died, with more than 10,000 in detention. On Tuesday, one human rights group said the numbers are much higher.

The protests come after a turbulent year for many Iranians.

JANATAN SAYEH: Of course, there were water scarcity issues, there were power outages …

Janatan Sayeh is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He offered policy analysis on the show yesterday, and went on to talk with me about the background leading up to the protests.

SAYEH: On the human rights front, this year we saw the highest number of executions of Iranians by the Islamic Republic. And once you couple all that together and pair it with the fact that the average Iranian doesn't have the purchase power to put bread on the table, it was really a turning point. And this is really a movement that has gone beyond just the protest wave, and it's more so resembling a revolution.

Many protesters are from Iran’s youthful population, looking to break away from the order of the Islamic establishment.

SAYEH: You’re talking about a population that's overeducated, underemployed, meaning most people do have college degrees, but they don't, they're not able to get jobs because of how the economy is functioning. You're talking about a population also that is increasingly looking at the West. Even though the flow of information to Iran is restricted, nonetheless, Iranians really strive to have the freedoms that they see in Europe, they see in America.

Iranian authorities have responded to the chants of “death to the dictator” by shutting down the internet and blocking international phone calls. Iranian authorities have warned that anyone joining the protests will be tried as an “enemy of God,” a charge that could draw the death penalty.

Tens of thousands of pro-government protesters also crowded the streets of Tehran on Monday in a government-organized demonstration.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened direct action against Iran, ranging from economic sanctions to direct strikes if Iran fails to negotiate.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf is an Iranian parliament speaker.

MOHAMMAD BAGHER GHALIBAF: [FARSI] Come and burn in the fire of Iran's defenders so severely that it becomes an unforgettable lesson learned in the cruel rulers' history of America. We will teach these cruel rulers a lesson. Come and realize what heavy consequences you will face when the region is set ablaze.

He threatened to teach Americans an unforgettable lesson if the U.S. attacks.

Iran has also blamed the United States and Israel for stoking the protests. But Sayeh says there’s room for countries like the U.S. to support the protesters.

SAYEH: So it is simply enabling protesters to maintain this, and that could be done through cyber engagement, cyber attacks against the regime, creating a strike fund, allowing laborers and business owners to maintain their strikes. More importantly, it would be attacks on the repression apparatus.

For many Iranians out in the streets, the movement goes beyond protests to seeing the collapse of the Islamic Republic.

Some are calling for a return to the monarchy led by Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s deposed Shah.

SAYEH: What sets this wave apart from previous ones is the fact that Iranians are not only aligned on what they want to see with the collapse of the regime, but more importantly, they know what they want to see after that, which is the return of the monarchy led by Crown Prince Pahlavi, at least in a transitional phase that would allow them to hold elections months down the road.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Oduah.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.