Posted on 01/01/2026 9:47:13 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
Widening demonstrations sparked by Iran’s ailing economy spread Thursday into the Islamic Republic’s rural provinces, with at least seven people being killed in the first fatalities reported among security forces and protesters, authorities said.
The deaths may mark the start of a heavier-handed response by Iran’s theocracy over the demonstrations, which have slowed in the capital, Tehran, but expanded elsewhere. The fatalities, two on Wednesday and five on Thursday, occurred in four cities, largely home to Iran’s Lur ethnic group.
The protests have become the biggest in Iran since 2022, when the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody triggered nationwide demonstrations. However, the demonstrations have yet to be countrywide and have not been as intense as those surrounding the death of Amini, who was detained over not wearing her hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.
The most-intense violence appeared to strike Azna, a city in Iran’s Lorestan province, some 300 kilometers (185 miles) southwest of Tehran. There, online videos purported to show objects in the street ablaze and gunfire echoing as people shouted: “Shameless! Shameless!”
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Prayers for the people of Iran heading into 2026.
Trump had major Iranian-American support here in the states.
No water, no money. What comes next? Famine. I pray it won’t be so for the Iranian people. My beef is with the mullahs. Get rid of those knuckleheads and the country would thrive again.
CC
And a longstanding seething hatred of their murderous muslim overlords.
I would like to know how much reliable news information comes out of Iran, especially now.
Prayers up for the people who risk all to fight for freedom.
According to the National Constitution Center——
In 1776, roughly two-thirds of the American colonists did not actively support the Revolution, with about 20% being committed Loyalists (supporting Britain—also called Tories or King’s Men) and another significant portion (potentially up to 40%) remaining neutral or undecided, though many leaned towards the Patriot cause as the war progressed. While an old myth suggests equal thirds, historians now estimate Loyalists at around 15-20%, with Patriots at 40%, and the rest neutral, making a majority against immediate, full-scale rebellion.
Also, among the Loyalists who were against the American Revolution....
“Many fled to New York City (a British stronghold during the war) and especially to Canada after the war, with thousands resettling in the future provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, becoming known as the United Empire Loyalists.”
Funny. Even in those days New York City and Canada were magnets for people who were against America.
They used to say Iranians wanted to protest lack of MTV (1980s). Then wanted modern Westerns fashions for women and to go without a hijab.
Now it’s for freedom and survival on all fronts.
I remember when they felt the same way about the Shah.
👍👍👍👍👍
It is pretty obvious that the legacy media (despite the AP piece here) is pretty uninterested. See this blog:
Middle East: revolution in Iran?
Despite the fact that the regime is trying to block internet access a lot of news is coming via social media. Of course in these days it is hard to know exactly how much is real and how much is fake.
The best site I have found is TousiTV
The author of the blog I quoted above refers to another site:
What is obvious now is that the protests have spread far outside Teheran which makes it harder for the authorities to contain them.
I am old enough to remember that the ones who felt that way about the Shah were a small minority of Marxist students backed by the Russians and Baathist Iraq, the American left, and an angry old Ayatollah who had been sheltered by both Baathist Iraq (and France, ) who had a following among non-Persian minority Arabs.
IMO, protests over a bad economic situation for n=most people, and things like prolonged and worsening water shortages, can sustain an uprising in most cultures better than issues of “rights” or repression. Most of the world has not experienced Western, much less “American” rights and freedom from heavy handed repression.
IMO, that last is why so few “new bosses” are actually better than the “old bosses”, as The Who sang:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDfAdHBtK_Q
While not totally unique, the US revolution is a bit of an outlier, as a political revolution which resulted in long term success (despite a civil war).
Yeah, some of those students went to the same University here in the States that I did, and they were generally a nuisance.
OTOH, most of the non-Marxist non-Islamic-chip-on-their-shoulders types were pretty decent guys (and a couple lovely gals among them too.)
“most people”
well, one thing that’s indisputable is the satellite images of Iran’s empty reservoirs ...
yep, Iranians are Persians, folks that actually built world empires at one time and preserved and advanced the sciences, technologies, and mathematics during the Dark Ages of Europe, and are still an ancient genetically coherent people, like the Chinese and Japanese ... a fucked-up religion is what’s been ruining them for hundreds of years now ...
I was young at the time. All I knew is what I saw on the TV news. It seemed everyone hated the Shah.
The Shah was not hated except by a small but vocal and violent group of Soviet communist backed Islamic fundamentalists
The Shah was forced out of Iran by Jimmy Carter who actively supported the Ayatollah Khomeini , a religious leader who notably researched and wrote the book on the proper, Koran approved methods and rules for Muslim men to have sex with goats and sheep
Literally
Serious about that
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