Iran's democratic revolution: what's at stake?

September 2022 saw the outbreak of an unprecedented revolt that shook Iran and shook the foundations of the religious dictatorship. The murder of young Mahsa Jina Amini by the morality police was the spark that rekindled the flames of popular anger against the oppression and humiliation of both women and men for so many years.
The people rose up against the lack of freedoms, but also in reaction to a disastrous economic situation, despite the country's vast natural resources.

According to internal economists, almost half the Iranian population lives below the poverty line. Over the past four decades, nearly eight million Iranians, most of them educated, have been forced to leave their homeland. Inflation is approaching 70%, the budget deficit is over 50% and the country's inactive population stands at 59%. The country's economic situation also reflects the final phase of the religious dictatorship, whose social support has dwindled to a trickle.
 
The causes of the revolt are still very much alive 
During the months of popular revolt, over seven hundred people lost their lives, victims of the state's bloody repression. Many of them were teenagers, even children. More than 30,000 people have been incarcerated in prisons where rape and torture are daily occurrences. Several arrested demonstrators from modest backgrounds were executed, like the young Mohsen Chekari. Others have been killed under torture or mysteriously died just after their release from prison, as a result of poisoning or other means. The most recent case is that of 35-year-old Javad Rouhi, sentenced to be hanged three times, who died in prison under unsolved circumstances. 

According to international NGOs, nearly 500 people were executed across the country in 2023. Iran holds the sad record for the highest number of executions per capita in the world.
This uprising saw the participation of all strata and sectors of society. Many artists, athletes, students, teachers, academics and even schoolchildren took to the streets to call for freedom and an end to the Islamist regime. In the process, many artists composed revolutionary songs in praise of the movement, and university students added poetry and color to the uprising of hearts and minds.

This revolutionary uprising, which emerged in the heart of the Middle East under the motto of establishing a democratic republic, received massive support from politicians, artists, thinkers, writers and parliamentarians from all over the world, who measured the courage of the demonstrators and the meaning of their commitment. It came as a great surprise, since for years analysts and Iranologists had been repeating that there would be no other revolution in Iran, and that its youth could only think of fleeing the country or coping with a few frivolous joys. 
Just as the absence of an uprising was not a sign of the Iranian people's docility, the appearance of a drop in the intensity of the revolt remains deceptive. Firstly, because the causes that triggered it are still very much alive. On the first anniversary of the movement, Iranians will be celebrating in one way or another, to say that nothing will ever be the same again. A few days ago, a wall in the heart of Teheran also bore the words "We will continue". 
 
Numerous demonstrations are also taking place abroad, the largest on September 15 in Brussels.
The regime is taking these growing threats very seriously, as evidenced by the measures taken in recent days: arrests and beatings of former political prisoners, arrests of relatives of victims of the uprising, cameras and vigils in cemeteries, metal and armoured plates around nerve centers and certain universities, dismissal of university professors deemed not docile enough, expulsion of students....

Faced with the scale of the repression, certain circles sought to impose pseudo-alternatives presented around the heir to the former deposed regime. Faced with the failure of this attempt and the discomfiture of a superficial and anachronistic union, in the absence of a real political project, others - and perhaps the same ones - tried, in the aftermath, to instill the idea that the revolutionary movement had no chance in Iran, due to the failure of the "opposition" to unite. That, because of the absence of a "credible alternative", there is no prospect of victory over the dictatorship. 
Yet, far from these quarrels, the Iranian people are firmly united in their desire for freedom and popular sovereignty. On the ground of the revolutionary struggle, there is considerable solidarity among the democratic forces, who have shown that they are ready to pay the priceless price of freedom.

The measures taken over the last few days show that the regime fears something huge in the days and months ahead. Popular discontent remains palpable for two reasons. Firstly, the socio-economic crisis is worsening, and secondly, the revolt has never ceased to exist: the demonstrations every Friday in Zahedan in Sistan Baluchistan, the revolts when demonstrators are executed, Iranian women who refuse to wear the compulsory headscarf despite the risks, posters of the regime's symbols - from Khomeini to Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei - burnt, the headquarters of the Basij militia and the Revolutionary Guards in charge of repression, or the buildings of the religious courts that hand down death sentences, targeted by reckless youngsters. Despite the cruelty of the repression, the authorities sense the existence of an organized resistance that is directing discontent towards a nationwide uprising. Its anger is publicly directed at what are now known as the "resistance units".

These young people, who once led the demonstrations, are now the protagonists of a more determined and clandestine action. This army of the shadows frightens the Pasdaran. 
Standing up to the machine of repression is no mean feat in a torturing state. How can we thwart the repressive machine and extend the network of active resistance members in the field? 
The challenge for all those who want to get rid of the mullahs is therefore to find ways of strengthening the capacity for action of resistance units. 

In this respect, the most organized and indispensable force on the ground is the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, which for several years has been investing in these networks and pouring new blood into the veins of the Resistance. The aim of the resistance units is to break the climate of terror by putting an end to the omnipotence of the mullahs, and to show that tyranny can be stood up to. The aforementioned actions enable activists to prepare, organize and ultimately stage the final uprising by channeling popular anger towards the nerve centers of the moribund regime.
Despite numerous arrests, resistance units are gaining ground in most Iranian provinces. The regime's highest authorities, such as Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Speaker of Parliament, emphasize the PMOI's "principal role" in the recent uprising in Iran.

However, the regime has worked systematically to demonize the PMOI both at home and abroad, in order to render its only credible alternative unpalatable.
But it has to be said that these efforts, which have long wreaked havoc, no longer have any effect on young people. In Iran, the focus is now on those who resisted in the most difficult times. What's more, calls for a democratic, secular republic, an end to the death penalty, gender equality, respect for human rights, autonomy for long-persecuted minorities... are in tune with the values of these young people. In their eyes, such a movement represents a credible alternative. 
 
Sara Nouri-Meshkati is a lawyer at the Paris Bar and a contributor to the Fondation d'Etudes pour le Moyen-Orient (FEMO).