TEHRAN, Iran — The death last week of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, after Iran’s notorious morality police arrested her because they thought she was not dressed conservatively enough, sparked one of the most intense waves of popular anger the country has seen in years, as well as a deluge of condemnation from abroad.
For a week now, protesters, most of them young women and men, have taken to the streets in dozens of Iranian cities. The scale of the demonstrations has astonished authorities, who have responded with guns, beatings and telecommunications shutdowns in a fruitless attempt to quell the unrest. State television put the death toll at 17, including two security officers. One rights group says the total number of people killed could be at least twice that.
What will the protests mean for the country’s hard-line government? And how does it compare to previous bouts of unrest?
