After two weeks of silence about the mass slaughter of Iranian protesters on 8 and 9 January, the partial restoration of internet services in the country is allowing the first plausible estimates of how bad it was to reach the international media. It was very bad. The most plausible estimates run from 22 000 to 30 304 killings in two days, mainly based on reports of hospital admissions, mortuaries and mass grave sites before the internet was fully shut down.
Indeed, many executions were carried out in hospitals, targeting protesters being treated there for shotgun wounds. There are 92 million people in Iran, but the protests took place all over the country (400 cities and towns). The deaths were so numerous that almost everybody will know somebody who knows somebody else who had a friend or family member killed, injured or jailed this month.
Hitherto the regime had support from a large minority of Shia Muslims and many more people wanted to be left in peace. Henceforward, the regime will effectively be an occupation force that rules only by terror – but such regimes can last a long time if they are ruthless enough. Consider the very different fates of Syria and Egypt in the Arab Spring of 2011-2013.
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The dictators of the two countries faced non-violent pro-democracy movements and the Egyptians overthrew General Hosni Mubarak. There was a free election but they elected an Islamist government, whereupon the army seized power. Non-violent supporters of the elected government mobilised again, but army and police snipers shot 2 400 protesters dead in Cairo and the protests stopped. In Syria, by contrast, the ruling Assad family started shooting the non-violent protesters right away in 2011, unleashing a civil war that lasted 13 years, devastating the entire country.
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