The current protests sweeping Iran showed that the regime has failed to subdue the younger generation, after more than 40 years in power, according to a report by the network.CNN“.
Analysts say school children are protesting on an unprecedented scale that may be difficult to contain. CNN reported that there are more popular protests in which school children are participating.
“There is another layer (of the demonstrations), which is the protests we are seeing in schools,” said Tara Sepehrifar, senior researcher for the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch, adding that they are “unprecedented” in Iran.
She added that the government is sending minor protesters to mental health centers.
In an interview with an Iranian newspaper, Iran’s Education Minister, Yousef Nouri, acknowledged last week that school students were already protesting, and the government was responding by detaining them and sending them to mental health facilities.
He explained that the institutions aim to “reform” the protesting students and rid them of their “anti-social” behaviour.
Protests erupted in Iran on September 17 after the announcement of the death of the 22-year-old girl, Mahsa Amini, in hospital, three days after she was arrested by the “morality police” and transferred to a “rehabilitation center.”
Iranian human rights lawyer, Hossein Raisi, associate professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, said mental health facilities operate like detention centers, adding that within the institutions, psychologists and social workers follow a strict government agenda and are not allowed to work independently with children.
“They don’t provide psychological support to the kids,” Raisi told CNN. They “brainwash” them, often intimidating or threatening them. “They came out worse than when they came in,” he continued.
While the Iranian minister did not say how many students have been arrested so far, experts say a large number of children are at risk; Because the protests are largely attended by young people.
Sepehri Far said authorities find it difficult to monitor minor protesters. She added that while it is easy to criminalize adult protesters, violent crackdowns on children risk full-blown anger across the country.
On October 5, the deputy of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards said that the average age of most of the people arrested during the protests is 15 years, according to the official news agency (IRNA).
Rights groups say the crackdown on children has been brutal, with the government responding to young protesters with arrests and violence.
Between 20 and 30 September, Amnesty International documented the killing of at least 23 children, it said last week, which raised the alarm about the violent crackdown targeting children now.
According to Amnesty International, “most of the boys were killed by the security forces who illegally fired live bullets at them,” and “three girls and a boy were killed after being beaten by the security forces.” It added that two of the boys “were killed after being hit with metal balls.” from close range.”
Amnesty International said it has so far recorded the killing of 144 men, women and children at the hands of Iranian security forces between September 19 and October 3.
“The Iranian authorities’ brutal crackdown on what many in Iran see as an ongoing popular uprising against the Islamic Republic’s regime has included an all-out attack on child protesters,” said Nassim Babayani, a prominent activist at Amnesty International on Iran.
Earlier this year, Iran touted a new patriotic song targeting school children across the country, releasing versions of it in different languages including Arabic.
The song was titled “Greetings, Commander,” as it pays homage to Imam al-Mahdi, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad who Shiite Muslims believe has been absent since the 10th century and will one day reappear to end world injustice.
In the words of the well-known Arabic song “Salam Ya Mahdi”, he said: “I am a child, but my family’s life and my life are all yours.”
In a music video published on Iranian media, thousands of veiled boys and girls were seen singing in unison during a live performance of the song.
Some were seen crying and others in military uniforms carrying posters of the former commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US airstrike in 2020.
Critics decried the song as an attempt to indoctrinate children and instill loyalty to the Islamic Republic.
After years of forced ideological education, the authorities now face a particularly challenging generation, said Sepehri Far of Human Rights Watch. “It’s a generation standing up to them,” she added.