Year Ender 2022: Iran protests that challenged the regime pushing for change
Hindustan TimesMore than 100 days of protests in Iran have shattered taboos and shaken the ideological pillars of the Islamic republic in a push for change that has defied a fierce crackdown. Iran, for its part, accuses hostile foreign powers of stoking the "riots", chiefly its arch-foe the United States but also other Western nations such as Britain and France as well as exiled opposition groups. This was not any "actual change" and women are still "punished in other ways", said Shadi Sadr, founder of the London-based Justice for Iran group. 'Never more vulnerable' While protests may have decreased in frequency and size in recent weeks, Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights said they still take place "every day across the country". "Never before in its 43-year history has the regime appeared more vulnerable," Iran scholar Karim Sadjadpour, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the US journal Foreign Affairs.