As the fear of violence from security authorities persists and more gruesome recordings continue to emerge from Iran, some protestors are leaving their cell phones at home before participating in protests.
The crowd erupted in loud applause as a 17-year-old girl in a bright yellow coat climbed on top of a car and threw her hands in the air, fingers spread to form a V for victory.
Sonia Sharifi had recently been liberated from an Iranian jail.
It is the fourth month of protests in Iran, and violence and intimidation against those calling for a revolution are at an all-time high since the beginning of the campaign.
Some protesters are leaving their phones at home to minimize the brutality they may experience if they are detained, as the risks are so great.
This may explain why fewer videos of protests appear to have emerged from the country in recent weeks.
Some folks were so overcome with joy that they spontaneously began to dance on the street.
According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, this teenager was pulled from her grandmother’s home in November, beaten, and coerced into signing a bogus confession admitting to constructing Molotov cocktails and writing threatening messages.
Encrypted conversations received by Iran’s infamous Revolutionary Guards accusing “hostile media” of “lying” about the circumstances of her imprisonment. They offered no proof for their accusations.
In the middle of December, Sonia’s defiant attitude struck without any fear of the authorities that held her and immediately traveled over social media.
The photograph of her courageous position was viewed by many Iranians online as a sign of hope at a time when the government had murdered two protestors and killed over 500 people.
According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), around 70 of the deceased were children. Published on 19 December, the group’s statistics also indicate that about 20,000 people had been arrested.
Despite this crackdown, the authorities have been unable to extinguish the protest movement that has swept the nation for the past three months.
The dots are redder or lighter based on the conservative estimate of the number of people present, with grey dots denoting protests when the size of the crowd cannot be determined. Given the difficulty of accessing the information on the ground in Iran, the CTP states that their dataset is “possibly incomplete.”
After the death of Mahsa Jina Amini, who was slain while in jail for wearing her hijab (head covering) “improperly,” the first waves of protests became visible.
It began primarily as a campaign for women’s rights, but soon other voices joined the demand for change. Freedom, democracy, and economic stability have fueled the determination of this army of average citizens.
The video illustrates how broad protests have been, with the Kurdish province and the capital Tehran continually functioning as focal points of the campaign.
The CTP has recorded over a dozen demonstrations with more than 1,000 participants. The majority of protests have had between 12 and 1,000 persons.
Professor of Iranian history and director of the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews, Ali Ansari, told: “Strikes and other forms of protest are currently occurring. The most important consideration is that it is difficult for the government to suppress them.”
The executions of two protestors, he added, have “merely strengthened the protesters’ resolve.”
Protesters leave their phones at home for safety.
Videos and photographs captured on smartphones have been one of the primary sources of information emanating from Iran, where independent and foreign media are effectively prohibited from reporting.
Now, however, this essential information lifeline is in jeopardy as the repercussions of possessing demonstration footage are becoming overwhelming for some.
“Those who film are being attacked. Mahsa Alimardani, a researcher with the information rights group Article 19 and the Oxford Internet Institute, says that they are subjected to additional harassment if they are arrested with a film of protests. Her research focuses on online information access in Iran.
To avoid this risk, many individuals who walk the streets today do not carry a cell phone.
Ms. Alimardani asserts that people are becoming increasingly wary after witnessing how others have been persecuted and criminalized for filming protests, while others have been targeted or even shot at for holding up their phones during demonstrations.
This, along with the continuation of stringent restrictions on internet access, makes it difficult for Iranians to convey to the foreign community the magnitude of the protests and the brutality of the repression.
Repeated interruptions have been reported by organizations such as internet monitors Netblocks and the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis (IODA) project at Georgia Institute of Technology, which indicate that authorities have attempted to restrict Iranians’ access to the internet.
During the execution of Majidreza Rahnavard on December 11, for instance, internet availability across the country decreased, as indicated by the red line on the graph in this tweet.
The government can target certain regions of the country, as they appear to have done on December 8, when internet connectivity was cut off for around seven hours in the Kurdish city of Sanandaj.
“What we are currently observing is merely the tip of the iceberg. It’s information that can slip through the gaps despite all the obstacles to getting online and documenting it, according to Ms. Alimardani.
For those willing to take the risk, the Iranian footage that has emerged in recent weeks has changed. Ms. Alimardani has seen that people are taking more precautions than in the past to conceal the names of those they are filming, such as focusing only on arms or legs and avoiding faces or filming in low light.
The prevalence of footage depicting violent fights and aggressive behavior by security forces has increased significantly since September and October. Evidence of injuries, including those incurred by individuals shot, is also extensively disseminated.
She continues, “We are still seeing a great deal of footage of protests in Iran, ranging from enormous crowds to balcony and rooftop yells.”
“However, there is also content about the crimes and murders of the Islamic Republic, which is being chronicled by users. Tragically, this information is increasing as the dictatorship employs increasingly harsh or even genocide-like tactics to suppress the protesters.”
What is the next step for the movement as bloodier images emerge from Iran and protesters continue to demonstrate?
“It is perhaps too early to call this a revolution,'” Mr. Ansari argues, “but many view the movement as revolutionary.”
The direction of travel is unambiguous.
