October 17, 2022 10:01 am
Evin prison in Tehran is the equivalent of the former Bastille in France. It is a penitentiary with a sinister reputation where opponents were incarcerated in the time of the Shah and where dissidents of the Islamic Republic are now held.
On the evening of October 15, a thick column of smoke rose over the structure as troops of the Revolutionary Guards converged on the prison in the northern part of the Iranian capital. Shots were heard late into the night. The inhabitants of Tehran held their breath: everyone knows someone, from near or far, who is one of the 15 thousand detainees. Foreign embassies have also observed the situation with anxiety, starting with the French one. Several French citizens are in fact imprisoned in the penitentiary.
The Iranian authorities accuse a group of “thugs” of having set fire to some packing stations where the detainees worked and report that four people lost their lives intoxicated by smoke. There are dozens of injured inmates. But the “Bastille of Tehran” did not fall and at the moment order reigns again in Evin.
Incredible boldness
In any case, we cannot underestimate the symbolic strength of this prison, whose name is synonymous with dictatorship and resistance, today as yesterday. Evin kills and tortures himself. The thieves coexist with political prisoners and in recent months also with protesters arrested while participating in the vast protest movement still underway.
The incident of October 15 is particularly significant because it is part of this unprecedented movement, born from the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, last September 16 while she was in the custody of the moral police.
Protests are increasingly massive, but still do not have the scope of the “green revolution”
For a month now, the movement – initiated and supported by often very young women but in which many men also participate – has continued to grow. The videos that reach us despite the interruptions of the internet connection show individual gestures of incredible audacity, from the girls parading in public with their hair in the wind to the hundreds of people chanting slogans such as “death in Khamenei” (the supreme guide) or ” women, life, freedom “.
What results can movement achieve? This is the question that everyone is asking. The repression is ruthless, with almost 200 victims especially in the Kurdish region of Iran, where Mahsa Amini came from. But the blood did not discourage the demonstrators, who are perfectly aware that they cannot expect any leniency from the regime.
The protests are becoming more and more massive, but at the moment they still do not have the scope of the “green revolution” of 2009 or the rebellions of 2019, two mass movements that the regime has severely crushed.
The supreme leader accused the United States and Israel of fueling the protests, an absurd thesis considering that everyone in Iran knows very well what triggered the wave of anger. But this internationalization of the problems, at a time when the nuclear deal with the United States seems to be receding and Iran is supporting Russia in Ukraine by sending kamikaze drones of dubious effectiveness, makes it possible to justify the repression.
There remains a commendable generation that asks for freedom, all freedom. She may not get it quickly, but she knows that time is on her side and the future belongs to her.
(Translation by Andrea Sparacino)