As details of the death toll for January’s protests continue to emerge, three students explain why they are resisting a return to normality
More than 45 days after a brutal January crackdown that left thousands of Iranian protesters dead, students across several universities are protesting again. As Iran’s new academic term began on Saturday, students in Tehran gathered on campus, chanting anti-government slogans, despite a heavy security presence and plainclothes officers stationed outside university gates.
The Guardian spoke to protesting students about why they were rallying despite the fact that thousands had been killed and tens of thousands arrested in the January demonstrations.
“Our classrooms are empty because the graveyards are full,” said Hossein*, 21, a student at the University of Tehran. “It’s for them – our friends, classmates and compatriots, who were gunned down in front of our eyes, that we decided to boycott the classes.”
“But we know the regime can no longer kill students on campus and call us terrorists … We are not afraid of losing our lives. We all are willing to put our lives on the line so at least the next generations of this country will live in freedom and peace.”
Very great to hear and gives me so much hope for the future.
The protests are good and justified, all power to the Iranian people. Iran deserves a second revolution, after the first one was taken over by the Mullahs for their own goals.
But it’s genuinely disheartening how readily nominally progressive spaces are jumping abord the manufactured consent for an imperialist military intervention by Israel and the US.
How, exactly, will bombing Iranian cities help their liberation? Or even if they succeed with deposing the Mullah regime, is anyone really expecting self determination by the Iranian people afterwards? We’re seen how the Shar’s son is pushed as the next US puppet government by US- and Israeli media (and their European allies).
The Iranian people, not just the current regime, are supportive of Palestine, and Israel and the US absolutely cannot accept that. Don’t cheer for imperialist intervention.
How, exactly, will bombing Iranian cities help their liberation?
Same way that kidnapping Maduro liberates Venezuela. And embargoing gasoline liberates Cuba. And sending ground troops into Denmark liberates Greenland.
The Iranian people, not just the current regime, are supportive of Palestine, and Israel and the US absolutely cannot accept that.
Under Shah Reza Pahlavi, they will crush Hamas and Hezbollah, defeat ISIS, and end Woke Gay Iranian Antifa once and for all.
at this point I’m don’t understand it but I can see it as a possible future for a lot of Latin America
we are watching in real time how Venezuela is transforming into a US colony
right now Fidel’s grandson is allegedly making deals with the US gov (while the US asks Mexico to stop any deals involving gas with Cuba)
and here in Mexico the state is so corrupt and the US propaganda is running strong for an intervention like the one in Venezuela (and what happened yesterday just made it worse)
Yawn more Western propaganda to justify war against Iran.
300 cops were killed by these “peaceful protesters”.
Yawn more Western propaganda to justify war against Iran.
I mean, it can be both. The Iranian government has been an oppressive theocratic reactionary force practically since day one of the revolution. They rejected socialist reforms and partnered with Ronald fucking Reagan to start a turf war with Iraq using chemical weapons. They’ve flubbed any effective containment of Israel, failed to integrate their economy with Pakistan or Turkiye or Afghanistan, gave up backing Yemen, and never finished their nuclear deterrent.
The current crisis they’re in wasn’t unforeseeable. But when even Ahmadinejad is too far left for your Guardian Council, it locks you into a dark future.
We can keep talking about dumb stuff Iran did 50 years ago but Khamenei is already dead. Iran is currently the only major party fighting Israel and standing for human rights and against genocide.
Saying they have failed to contain Israel is laughable. The entire American air force is on Irans doorstep because they have been so effective in containing Israel. Pakistan and Turkiye are led by unreliable NATO slaves there is no stable partnership to build with them.
Yemen is still receiving Iranian weapons and has defeated the US air force last year with them while lobbing missiles at Israel.
Pezeshkian is their current president and he is a reformist. The reformists are the reason that Iran does not have nukes right now.
Iran is currently the only major party fighting Israel
No, they aren’t. They’re rolling over for Israel time and time again.
They withdraw support from Hezbollah, from the Houthis in Yemen, and from the Taliban in Afghanistan for a few temporary sanctions suspensions. They actively collaborate with Israel’s friends in Russia and Saudi Arabia. They collaborated with the fucking Americans during the initial Iraq War. They crack down on their own domestic civilians when those populations want more aggressive Palestinian support. They’ve been “six months from producing a nuclear weapon” for thirty fucking years.
Yemen is still receiving Iranian weapons
The only thing they know how to do to Israel is to fire Warning Shots. Over and over and over again. Even as Israelis butcher their people at home and abroad.
They aren’t fighting them in any material sense.
The Iraq war is 20 years in the past it is no longer relevant. Bigger recent human rights abuses from Iran came from their support from Assad. But now that Assad is gone a US slave has taken his place so that is double sided.
Iran supports the resistance behind the scenes not in front of it like Yemen. I would love for Iran to actively start shelling Israel, they have during the 12 day war, but they are already doing a million times more than every other country worldwide such as China which is actively helping Israel colonize the West Bank.
I clicked your Houthi link and it is one of those anti Houthi propaganda websites. Becomes rather obvious when you go to their front page. I hope you reconsider your sources.
Iran supports the resistance behind the scenes not in front of it like Yemen.
That stopped being true years ago. They’ve fully retreated from the regional stage.
they are already doing a million times more than every other country worldwide
They’re unable to keep the water flowing and the lights on, because they keep trying to make deals with Western imperialists and getting played
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/07/22/post-12-day-war-iran-continues-to-invest-in-the-houthis/
Iran is sanctioned because it does not bow for Israel. That is the entire reason.
Iran literally sentencing kids to death and you’re saying this shit? You’re getting paid or smt?
Iran literally sentencing kids to death
This isn’t novel to Iran. The US was sentencing minors to execution until as recently as 2005, when the SCOTUS struck down junivenille executions in Roper v. Simmons.
And that was under a relatively liberal majority. No way Roper would have gone 5-4 under a Roberts court.
Two 17 year old terrorists magically become children.
Those 300 cops must have killed themselves.
Ehsan Hosseinipour Hesarloo, 18, Matin Mohammadi and Erfan Amiri, both 17, are undergoing a fast-tracked, torture-tainted grossly unfair trial before Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran for alleged involvement in an 8 January 2026 fire at a Basij base inside a mosque in Pakdasht, Tehran province, that killed two Basij agent
So they literally killed police and burned down mosques.
Amnesty is an imperialist propaganda organisation which has repeated the debunked Hamas rape hoax. They will paste any Zionist propaganda they are asked on their frontpage.
Removed by mod
Why do these idiots in authoritarian dictatorships always think that protesting the government will remove it? No, they’ll kill you. Learn your lesson. And by that I don’t mean giving up.
Good book on this if you actually want to know why it’s good to protest even in authoritarian countries https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/453761/when-everyone-knows-that-everyone-knows-by-pinker-steven/9780241618820
After 40 days, as expected. Trump now has his public excuse to attack. I don’t know what to think of all this.
William Spaniel, Lines on Maps on YouTube, tried to break it down in a couple of videos.
