Projecting images on inhabited towers or coloring fountains blood red: Iranians equipped with a simple telephone are adopting a whole series of tactics to prolong the demonstrations against the death of Mahsa Amini, despite the deadly repression.
Outrage over the September 16 death of the 22-year-old Iranian Kurd has sparked the largest protests in Iran since the 2019 protests over rising gas prices there.
Mahsa Amini was arrested on September 13 by the morality police in Tehran for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women, including the wearing of the veil.
Despite restrictions on Internet access imposed by the authorities and the blocking of popular applications such as Instagram or WhatsApp, young Internet users still manage to publish videos of the demonstrations.
“New phase”
One shows drivers honking their horns in Tehran in support of protesters and blocking roads with their cars to slow down the deployment of security forces.
They reacted by taking motorcycles to make their way through traffic jams. Members of the security forces even tore off license plates from vehicles in order to identify the drivers. Some shot demonstrators with shotguns and paintballs in an attempt to find them afterwards, according to videos.
To cope with the crackdown, young people are wearing face masks and hoodies, putting their mobile phones on airplane mode to avoid detection and packing extra clothes to replace those splashed with paint.
On videos shared on social networks, demonstrators dismantle a surveillance camera in Sanandaj, the capital of the province of Kurdistan where Mahsa Amini is from.
Some organize smaller gatherings, away from the main squares of the city.
“The uprising continues, but we are seeing fewer videos due to severe internet access restrictions,” tweeted Shadi Sadr, director of the London-based NGO Justice for Iran.
Those who are too intimidated to demonstrate have found other, more discreet means. Two weeks ago, fountains in Tehran appeared to be filled with blood after an artist colored their waters red to reflect the deadly crackdown.
Art students from a university in Tehran even made a video showing their hands raised in the air and covered in red paint.
“This new phase in the protests is more decentralized than those that preceded it. It is done without leadership, organization or specific demands such as a change in policy, for example,” Omid Memarian, an Iranian analyst from the NGO Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), told AFP.
“These demonstrations, on the other hand, call for the “death” of the dictator and the end of the Islamic Republic. They have succeeded in disarming the repressive machine which is trained to stifle mass protests or even student demonstrations,” he added.
Cuddles
Defying the authorities, activists from the Edalat-e Ali hacking group hacked into a live state television newscast, showing an image of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on fire.
In a video that went viral this week, Mahsa Amini’s face was projected onto a tower in Ekbatan Town, a neighborhood in the heart of the Iranian capital.
Another video released on Wednesday shows two women without veils in a street in the west of the capital hugging people in front of a sign saying “hugs for those who are sad”.
In some classrooms, schoolgirls dared to give the middle finger in front of portraits of the Supreme Leader, with their backs to the camera and after removing their headscarves.
For Henry Rome, Iran specialist at the Washington Institute, the protest movement is likely to last a long time.
“The state has well-established methods such as violence, arrests, internet disruptions and intimidation,” he told AFP.
But “for now, neither the state nor the protesters are able to overcome the challenge posed by the other, which suggests that the current protests and violence could last a long time”.