The Shah was reinstated and his authoritarian rule was backed by the U.S. Mosaddegh was elected Prime Minister that year but was overthrown in a 1953 CIA-backed coup. In 1951, Mosaddegh presented the idea to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC)-renamed British Petroleum in 1954-over grievances that Britain was profiting far more off the oil than Iran. Read More: What the Success of Women-Led Protests Tell Us About Iran’s Future

She says this was a “mini movement” that the nation saw on a larger scale during the Islamic Revolution. Many young people and workers took to the streets to protest, according to Esfandiari, who was a young girl during the time. This led to the creation of the National Front-a coalition of various groups including religious leaders-wanting to end foreign influence in Iran. that prioritized international trade and exploiting natural resources. Politician and lawyer Mohammed Mosaddegh emerged as a nationalist leader in the 1940s and organized a demonstration against the mismanagement of finances by the Shah-who had made deals with the Soviet Union, the U.K., and the U.S. The constitution was once again reinstated in 1909, when Mohammad Ali Mirza was ousted in favor of his son Ahmad Mirza during constitutionalist marches. His son, Mohammad Ali Mirza, took power in 1907 and dissolved parliament and abolished the constitution in 1908 when he bombarded parliament with British and Russian backing. Muzaffaru’d-Di’n Shah Qajar, who reigned Iran from 1896 until 1907, approved the new constitution in 1906 as one of his final tasks as Shah before his death. “The other thing is eventually they did give seats to religious minorities in Iran, which was for that time period, again, a remarkable step.” People were no longer recognized as subjects of this autocratic King, although the King still was autocratic,” says Kashani-Sabet. “The constitutional revolution was extraordinary because it had some forward-thinking ideas. The major event invited debate and input from a variety of voices these included intellectuals versed in Western enlightenment as well as those from Islamist backgrounds. In a bid to tackle government corruption and foreign influence in 1905, young revolutionaries led a movement that saw a parliament, or majlis, established in 1906, diminishing the monarchy’s power. A meal served at the British embassy to around 1,500 peaceful demonstrators-bread, cheese, and sour milk-in 1906 Persia. The constitutional revolution was the first grassroots movement of its kind in the Middle East during the early years of the 20th century, according to Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, a scholar of Iranian and Middle Eastern history at the University of Pennsylvania. The 1906 Persian constitutional revolution

But what began as a cry for “ woman, life, liberty” has morphed into a wider movement against the Government of the Islamic Republic, led by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.Īlthough the world’s eyes have focused on the protests in Iran to a degree not seen in decades, the country has long been a hotbed of political activism and revolution-short and long, unsuccessful and successful.īelow, some of the key periods of protests and revolutions in Iran that paved the way for subsequent activism. 16, according to the Tehran-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, many of whom were young women. “During the last 43 years, we have seen a number of protest movements and they were all crushed,” she says, referring to the period since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.Īt least 434 protesters have died since Sept. “It is quite a long time,” says Haleh Esfandiari, the founding director of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center think tank. According to academics, the protest movement galvanized by the killing of Mahsa Amini-a 21-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who was arrested for “improper hijab” and allegedly beaten to death by Tehran’s “morality police”-has lasted a lot longer than they expected. Iranian citizens have been risking their lives to protest the nation’s authoritarian regime for over nine weeks, and despite the bloodshed amid a crackdown by security forces, they show no signs of backing down.

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