https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests...
IE as the right is becoming more anti-Israel, you find a lot more pro Islamic Republic stuff there these days. The boomer and zoomer right are very different beasts.
I don't follow the left as closely these days, but imagine there are a myriad of opinions on the matter.
I used to read the English version of Russia today, and it was almost comical to seem them oscillate articles that fit the "Based Mother Russia of Traditional Values" trope, then right next to it nostalgic Tankie stuff or the anti "Western Imperialist" think pieces. It's like they didn't even know who their useful idiots were anymore.
don't know a solution but this one isn't it
Machiavelli in Discourses on Livy says you are inviting an overthrow of your government by doing this.
The mercenaries can flip sides if the opposite faction pays them and offers them better terms... or maybe the mercs just flip.
Hard to say how true this is.
That said, I'm sure the death count numbers from the Rasht Massacre are staggeringly higher than the initial tallies of 2-5k.
EDIT: Sorry... that is too strong... "state aligned influence media". Note that the headline might be true, or it might not, but that source is quite glowy.
> Interesting that the same western media outlets which spent two years nonstop questioning and disputing and refusing to accept Palestinian death tolls out of Gaza, even when they were backed by human rights groups and monitors like Airwars and studies in The Lancet, are totally fine uncritically accepting totally unsourced and huge, huge numbers out of Iran.
> This is what media propaganda and bias looks like (and, no, before the trolls descend, of course I’m not questioning that lots of innocent people have been brutally killed in Iran).
There is zero journalistic integrity to be found in his post.
Note that this works both ways: "Interesting that the same western media outlets which spent two years nonstop covering Gaza are totally fine not even having a single article about the massacre committed by the islamist iranian regime. And, no, before the trolls descend, of course I'm not questioning that lots of innocent people have been killed in Gaza.".
And "Interesting that the same protesters who spent months protesting on US and EU campuses for Gaza are not protesting to defend the protesters massacred en masse by the iranian regime. And, no, before the trolls descend, of course I'm not questioning that lots of innocent people have been killed in Gaza".
We don't know if the numbers are true but we're literally talking about half the death in two years in Gaza in a few days in Iran. I don't know if people realize the level of horrors we're talking about here.
This is such a dangerous manipulation technique that uses the output of one media source like Fox News as an attack on the reputation of all. CNN and the BBC have reported on Israel's offensive and the massive suffering and death multiple times.
"Study disputes Gaza genocide charges, finds flawed data amid Hamas-driven narrative"
https://www.foxnews.com/world/study-disputes-gaza-genocide-c...
#--------------
"Gaza death toll has been significantly underreported, study finds"
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/09/middleeast/gaza-death-toll-un...
"More than 70,000 killed in Gaza since Israel offensive began, Hamas-run health ministry says"
Including the Mossad, which is kinda an important footnote you might not want to omit: https://xcancel.com/BarakRavid/status/1560685368780939265/
"Iranian security forces deployed unknown chemical substances amid deadly crackdowns on protestors in several cities earlier this month, eyewitnesses told Iran International, causing severe breathing problems and burning pain.
They described symptoms that they said went beyond those caused by conventional tear gas, including severe breathing difficulties, sudden weakness and loss of movement...
...According to the accounts, in some cases gunfire began at the same time, or immediately after, protesters lost the ability to walk or run and fell to the ground.
Several witnesses said that moments of immobilization became points at which shooting intensified, particularly when protesters collapsed in alleys or while trying to flee.
Reports came from multiple cities, including Tehran, Isfahan and Sabzevar."
The official name of Iran is "The Islamic Republic of Iran" and it is a country ruled by sharia law. Countries ruled by Sharia are already totalitarian states.
I hate how irrational our species is and how unempathetic we are to situations not immediately in front of us.
And Trump should not have promised assistance. How many more people are dead because they were encouraged by said promise? Some of these deaths can surely be attributed to him.
The irony is that now those who are still alive in Iran might remember this and update their notion of US trustworthiness accordingly.
We make decisions all the time that result in immense amount of unnecessary suffering because of a total lack of rationality.
Our food consumption choices alone have created the objectively largest and most horrific engine of suffering in the history of this planet, all for the pleasure of our taste buds. The average person is directly responsible for this.
It is the irrationality and lack of empathy of the average person that bothers me. Unless you show them a video of protestors being massacred in Iran, or take them to a factory farm, they don't care. And even then, they often don't care. Why?
Suffering is roughly sortable and it is certainly within the power of most people to drive down the greatest sources of suffering, and pressure their government to do so when it is not directly within their power.
But people are irrational.
They're not going to be outraged over the people they support killing protestors who want to topple the thing they support.
Also, just to be fair, there's also some right-wing obvious Russian agents weirdly not condemning the Islamic Republic...
I'm on the side of the Iranian protestors, not the murderous Islamic regime and terrorists, nor their murderous Russian allies.
What's vile is not being opposed to the murder of 36000 people.
But you keep bringing up Zionists which gives a clue as to your persuasions, especially since they have no role in any of the events discussed here unless you believe the "Jews run the world" conspiracy theories.
Anyhow, the horseshoe is real and the Russian/Iranian money trail is real...
Here's some examples: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/24/uk-protest-gro...
https://time.com/7005190/iran-gaza-protests-nuanced-reality/
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/iranian-government-actors-se...
https://reason.com/2026/01/23/the-trump-administration-plans...
The US shipped the carrier battle group in the region out to support the Venezuela operations, and is deporting asylum seekers back to their deaths this week.
Nobody in the US has any idea what is happening in Iran. Judging by the weird, not very HN like threads on this post, sounds like we are going to.
The article says "36,500 killed in 400 cities". That's 91 people per city.
As for the numbers:
Interior Ministry reports say security forces confronted demonstrators in more than 400 cities and towns, with more than 4,000 clash locations reported nationwide
As to the how, the article suggests some deaths immediately occurred in crowds - firing, dispersing, funneling, crush injuries, etc. leading to many intakes to hospitals and treatment tents etc ... followed by execution of the injured.
It's grim stuff.
Some years past the waves of the Rwanda massacres saw almost a million people killed in bursts across 100 days, mostly with machetes and hand guns.
The numbers reported here are absolutely feasible, the reporting is certainly questionable; bad things happened, but was it at the claimed scale?
That's like ~40% of the deaths in the current gaza war, except over just 2 days instead of 2 years.
Sure you will get some nay-sayers who say 'a life is a life', if moral particles existed, they might be correct.
But for some reason, humanity doesn't seem to care as much.
What makes intra-state politics more acceptable to use violence?
Which books say that?
I don’t think that’s a particularly established moral position.
I don’t know that anyone thinks a state’s violence against its citizens is less immoral. It’s more that countries are more hesitant to get militarily involved in the domestic affairs of another country because it would mean essentially declaring war against that state. But in a conflict between states, an outsider can more easily support one side militarily without declaring war against the other side.
That’s from my readings of philosophy.
But yeah, I do recognize the same sentiment as you found. I think philosophy itself is an answer: most philosophies explicitly champion dictatorships, under whitewashed terms. Ever heard something like “society is a big organ transcending individual needs”? We got it from Hegel.
I don't understand how you could make this claim.
"society is a big organ transcending individual needs”?"
How does this statement by Hegel champion dictatorships?
Who holds this opinion?
>But for some reason, humanity doesn't seem to care as much.
All of humanity cares less about when a government uses violence against its citizens than wars?
How can you possibly make this generalization when each internal conflict is different just like every war and how difficult it is to measure sympathy
Acceptable? It's more about the consequences or lack thereof, the incentives
History has shown that pretty much nothing happens to the regime unless two coalitions of countries invade from both sides simultaneously, and that's like, not going to happen
Or does that logic only apply to US-based developments?
However, it also says:
> "Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it." [0]
This is not a comment of support of the Iranian regime, or against the people of Iran to have which ever government they see fit.
But these numbers are simply not credible. It's 40 beheaded babies all over again.
Remember the governing ideology of the US and Israel sees the continued existence of Iran as an existential threat. Their aims may align with the protestors temporarily but I think a permanently fractured, Syria type situation is much more palatable to them than a rapid transition to a more democratic system that leaves the country intact. There is no guarantee a post-islamic Iran would step into line, and it would remain a regional power that would be much harder to justify continued sanctions against.
A part of me suspects the incredibly conspicuous endorsement of the protestors by the US/Israel regime is an attempt to discredit them. A zombie regime under the Mullahs will likely to continue to implode economically, which means they are less able to defend themselves from US/Israeli attacks in the future. A clean change of government with domestic US pressure to lift sanctions would be their nightmare scenario.
Note, I'm not saying that they have been confirmed, but I do not think that you have given sufficient cause for rejecting them out of hand.
> “President Trump ordered the Treasury and our OFAC division to put maximum pressure on Iran and it worked,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said when asked whether US sanctions on Iran were effective.
> In December their economy collapsed. We saw a major bank go under. The central bank has started to print money. There is a dollar shortage. They are not able to get imports and this is why the people took to the street,” he added.
And incited by Mossad, https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-881733
> “Go out together into the streets. The time has come,” the Mossad wrote.
> It continued, “We are with you. Not only from a distance and verbally. We are with you in the field.”
> The statement was a rare open acknowledgment from the Mossad regarding ongoing operations in Iran.
It was obviously a regime-change operation by US and Israel.
ares623•1h ago
Jabrov•1h ago
gizajob•1h ago
Jabrov•1h ago
“ While most of the killings were carried out by IRGC and Basij forces, reports received by Iran International indicate that proxy forces from Iraq and Syria were also used in the crackdown. The deployment of non-local forces suggests a decision to expand repression capacity as quickly as possible.”
sshine•58m ago
Also, read the article. :)
bawolff•51m ago
Usually mercenaries mean people doing it for money not ideology who get paid significantly more than your average soldier.
flyinglizard•1h ago
It’s generally not very hard to incite violence across groups in the Middle East, especially when you consider how bad the outcome might be for the losing side. Case in point, the Alawites who lost control of Syria and are now persecuted by the new government.
myth_drannon•1h ago
skissane•58m ago
kibwen•56m ago
The notion of some well-defined "people" is a fiction that ruling powers use to keep humanity's innate tribalistic tendencies pointed outward at their adversaries.
The truth is that the powers-that-be consider themselves to be above "the people", and will dispose of you as soon as you become inconvenient.
jacquesm•52m ago
toyg•47m ago
hshdhdhj4444•47m ago
Renee Good. Alex Pretti.
It’s not just that they were killed but so much of the country including, most relevantly, the administration, believe they should have been killed.
It’s not hard to other any set of people.
ks2048•32m ago
vjvjvjvjghv•32m ago
woodruffw•44m ago
exidy•29m ago
The end of the regime was brought about by an incursion into the Vietnamese border town of Ba Chúc, resulting in the massacre of more than 3000 civilians. Vietnam invaded, toppled the Khmer Rouge and brought an end to the executions although civil war would continue for much of the next decade.
For these actions Vietnam was extensively sanctioned[1]. The parallels with ongoing conflicts today are hard to ignore.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#Crimes_against_hum...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian%E2%80%93Vietnamese_W...