WSJ: Second Wave Of Protests Grows In Iran

People are filled with indignation.

Iran's brutal crackdown on mass protests, in which up to 30,000 people may have been killed, and the repression that followed, have failed to quell opposition to the Islamic regime. Hatred of it has only grown, spawning acts of defiance - sometimes loud and risky, sometimes quiet and nonpublic, writes The Wall Street Journal.

Iranians are defying Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the authorities despite the fact that they are carrying out mass arrests to intimidate and silence protesters.

"People are overwhelmed with fear, but also with indignation," a woman from the city of Kermanshah wrote to the WSJ in a text message. - 'We are all looking up at the sky, hoping that Trump will start bombing us just to destroy Khamenei and his regime. We are ready to die one by one, but we don't want our children to suffer like us from pain and torture."

The venue for expressing this outrage is often funerals and memorial ceremonies, where relatives and friends of those killed shout anti-government slogans, including "Death to Khamenei!" as seen in videos appearing on social media. Schoolchildren refuse to sing patriotic songs. Medical workers publicly condemn the arrests of their colleagues who treated the wounded during the protests. And activist groups are openly calling for Khamenei's overthrow.

The same is publicly stated by prominent dissidents. The scale of the killings shows that the Islamic Republic is not reformable and must be dismantled, said former Prime Minister Mir-Hosein Mousavi, who has been held under house arrest in Tehran for years. Mousavi and his supporters are pushing for a constitutional referendum that would ensure a "democratic and peaceful" change of power, the Financial Times said. His appeal to the Iranian authorities said:

"What other words do people have to tell you that they don't want to see you anymore? Lay down your arms and leave your posts so that the people themselves can lead this country to freedom and prosperity. Game over.

The U.S.-based organization Human Rights Defenders of Iran has been able to confirm the deaths of an estimated 7,000 people since the demonstrations began in late December. More than 50,000 have been arrested in the same period."

Some estimates put the death toll as high as 30,000. Authorities have acknowledged the deaths of about 3,000 people and the arrest of several hundred, whom state media describe as rioters and terrorists.

"Having killed thousands of civilians, the Islamic Republic is now going house to house to punish those who dared to protest and crush any potential show of further resistance," said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran.

Despite threats of arrest, protests continue. "A student who is dying will not accept humiliation," chanted a group of medical students in Mashhad, according to a video verified by Storyful (part of News Corp Holding, the parent company of the WSJ).

The government has turned "the peaceful protest of people who came out with ordinary demands into dust and blood," the Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers' Unions said in a public statement:

Grief has turned into deep hatred in our hearts.

Famous actress Elnaz Shakerdust announced that she has decided to leave the profession after such repression. "I will never again play a role in a country that smells of blood," she wrote on Instagram.

Citizens plan to continue speaking out against the regime. Traders in Tehran's Grand Bazaar, where the first protests erupted in late December, have called on shopkeepers across the country to take to the streets Feb. 17-18, after the end of a 40-day mourning period for those killed Jan. 8-9, when security forces massacred the streets of Iranian cities.

The Telegram channel of the Bazaar Workers Association posted a message, WSJ writes:

"We invite the noble people of Iran across the country to simultaneously, in their own cities, keep the memory of the dead alive and continue the national uprising. The goal is to avenge the greatest street massacre in modern history."

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