Over the past several weeks, Iran has experienced its most serious wave of protests since the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising of 2022. What began as an economic protest quickly turned political, with chants calling for an end to the Islamic Republic — and the most brutal response of repression in the history of the Islamic Republic, with killings, mass arrests, executions, and an internet blackout.

UCLA historical sociologist Kevan Harris reconstructs the spark that ignited the protests — a technocratic reform perceived as an unjust tax, adding to economic and political grievances that exploded into a broader uprising. Iranian scholar and political activist Yassamine Mather examines the brutal repression that followed and the dangerous media distortions surrounding the uprising as exile groups promote monarchist fantasies and openly flirt with US and Israeli intervention. Mather says Iranian protesters overwhelmingly reject both the Islamic Republic and the shah’s dictatorship — and foreign intervention threatens to crush the very movement it claims to support.

Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

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