Iran protests: Teen’s bravery offers glimmer of hope as violent crackdown and internet restrictions continue

In her sunshine yellow coat, a 17-year-old girl clambered on top of a car and threw her hands in the air – fingers spread to show V for victory – and the crowd erupted in a loud cheer.

Sonia Sharifi had just been released from the clutches of Iranian detention.

It is the fourth month of protests in Iran and the levels of violence and intimidation facing those calling for revolution are at their highest since the movement began.

The risks for those involved are huge, with some protesters now leaving their phones at home to minimise the brutality they could face if they are arrested.

This may be why it appears less video evidence of the protests has been emerging from the country in recent weeks.

Despite the danger, video verified by Sky News shows the moment Sonia’s family, friends and neighbours gathered in the streets of Abdanan to celebrate her homecoming when she was released on bail. It is blurred to keep their identities safe.

Some people were so overwhelmed with happiness they began to spontaneously dance in the street.

The Kurdistan Human Rights Network report that this teenage girl was dragged from her grandmother’s house in November, beaten and forced into a false confession admitting to making Molotov cocktails and writing dangerous slogans.

Iran’s notorious Revolutionary Guards have sent messages on an encrypted messaging app monitored by Sky News accusing “hostile media” of “lying” about details of her arrest. They provided no evidence for their claims.

Sonia’s defiant pose, struck seemingly without fear of the authorities who detained her, spread quickly across social media in the middle of December.

The image of her brave stance was treated by many Iranians online as a symbol of hope at a time when the state had executed two protesters and more than 500 demonstrators had lost their lives.

The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) report that around 70 of those who died were children. The group’s figures, published on 19 December, also report that almost 20,000 people have been arrested.

Despite this crackdown, authorities have been unable to stamp out the protest movement that has been sweeping across the country for the past three months.

Sky News has mapped the location of every protest made up of 12 or more people since 16 September, with data provided by the Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute with support from the Institute for the Study of War.

The dots are lighter or darker red depending on the conservative estimate of the number of people present, with grey dots indicating protests where it is not possible to determine the size of the crowd. The CTP say their dataset is “likely incomplete” given the difficulty to access information on the ground in Iran.

It is possible to see the first surges of demonstrations that began after the death of Mahsa Jina Amini, who was killed while in detention for wearing her hijab (head covering) “improperly”.

Read more:
Mass protests and government buildings attacked – online evidence shows what’s happening in Iran

It began mostly as a women’s rights movement but other voices quickly joined the call for a revolution. Issues such as freedom, democracy and economic stability have fuelled the determination of this army of ordinary people.

The animation shows how protests have been widespread, but with the Kurdish province and the capital Tehran consistently serving as hot spots for the movement.

Most protests have been between 12 and 1,000 people, with around a dozen being logged by the CTP as more than 1,000 individuals attending a single demonstration.

Ali Ansari, professor of Iranian history and director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews, told Sky News: “We are now seeing strikes and different types of protest taking place. The main thing to consider is that the government is finding it difficult to suppress them.”

He added that the executions of two protesters has “simply made the protesters more determined”.

‘Protesters leave phones at home to stay safe’

Videos and images taken by people on their smartphones have been one of the main sources of information coming out of Iran, with independent and foreign media effectively barred from reporting in the country.

But now, this vital information lifeline is at risk as the consequence of being found with protest footage is becoming insurmountable for some.

“People are being attacked for filming. They are further harassed if they are found with footage from protests when they are arrested,” explains Mahsa Alimardani, a researcher with information rights group Article 19 and the Oxford Internet Institute. Her work focuses on access to information online in Iran.

“People who go out on the streets now often don’t go out with their phones to eliminate that risk.”

Ms Alimardani says people are now becoming more cautious after seeing how others have been pursued and criminalised over footage, while others have been targeted or even shot at for holding up their phones at protests.

This and continuing draconian restrictions on internet access means Iranians face multiple layers of challenges when attempting to get evidence of the scale of the protests and the brutality of the crackdown out to the international community.

Authorities have aggressively attempted to limit the Iranian people’s ability to get online, with organisations such as internet monitors Netblocks and the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis (IODA) project at Georgia Institute of Technology reporting repeated outages.

For example, internet access across the country dropped during the execution of Majidreza Rahnavard on 11 December, as highlighted by the red stripe on the graph in this tweet.

The authorities are able to target specific areas of the country, as they appear to have done on 8 December when internet access dropped for around seven hours in the city of Sanandaj in the Kurdish region of the country.

“Really what we are seeing is really the tip of the iceberg. It’s stuff that is able to fall through the cracks of all these difficulties to get online and to document,” Ms Alimardani says.

For those prepared to take the risk, the footage coming out of Iran in recent weeks has changed. Ms Alimardani has noticed people are taking more steps than before to hide people’s identities while filming, such as just focusing on arms or legs and avoiding faces entirely, or filming in low light.

Footage showing violent clashes and aggressive behaviour from the security forces has become much more prevalent than in September and October. Evidence of injuries, including those sustained by people who have been shot, is also being widely shared.

“We’re still seeing a lot of footage of protests, in its diverse forms across Iran, from large crowds to balcony and rooftop chants,” she explains.

“But the content that speaks to the crimes and murders of the Islamic Republic is also there and is being documented by users. The tragedy is seeing this content increase as the regime takes on more violent or even genocidal strategies to put down the protests.”

As the footage coming out of Iran becomes more bloody and the protesters show little sign of stopping, what is next for the movement?

“It is probably too early to characterise this as a ‘revolution’,” Mr Ansari explains, “but people do see the movement as revolutionary.

“The direction of travel is clear.”

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