Nothing to Lose

Protests across Iran reveal the depths of the country's social and economic pain

- Benjamin Purvis

There's a small word that protesters in Iran are using on social media to show their anger goes far beyond the tragic death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman who died in September after being in the custody of the country's morality police.

Baraye is the Persian equivalent of the English word "for." It's a simple preposition that people are using to highlight the scale and scope of their grievances against the Islamic Republic as the country is shaken by some of the biggest demonstrations it's seen since the 1979 revolution.

"For the victims of flight ps752," reads one posting on Twitter, referring to the Ukrainian passenger plane shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in January 2020, killing 176 people. "For the Blue Girl," reads another, a reference to Sahar Khodayeri, who set herself on fire and died in 2019 after being arrested for trying to attend a soccer match. "For not being able to kiss in the street." "For the fear of burning in hell instilled in us by religious teachers."

The list goes on: random acid attacks on women, laws that limit women's freedom and economic rights, corrupt water policies that have destroyed rivers, the state murders of intellectuals in the 1990s, a ban on "Western" vaccines at a time when Iran was suffering the region's deadliest Covid-19 outbreak.

The frustrations Iranians are reacting to go beyond state-backed violence, political repression, and social strictures. The country has been isolated from the global economy for as long as many of the protesters have been alive, with occasional flickers of hope that some kind of rapprochement could be at hand. The resulting economic malaise is taking a toll. Inflation surpassed 52% in June, and more than a quarter of those age 15 to 24 are out of work. That's produced a volatile backdrop for potential unrest.