When authoritarian regimes strip away the humanity of their own people, blowback invariably follows. That is now happening in both Iran and Russia, where the autocrats in charge are seeing firsthand their nations’ boiling points reached, both on the streets and in the minds of infuriated citizens.
In Iran, fiery demonstrations against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have persisted for days, ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman arrested by the country’s morality police for violating the requirement that women wear a hijab. She died while in custody. Authorities say she died of a heart attack, but many Iranians are deeply skeptical of that claim.
The protests, Iran’s largest since 2009, fanned out to as many as 80 cities. Iranian authorities responded with a brutal crackdown that killed at least 50 people. In several cities, police opened fire on crowds.
