Violent Shifts in the Iran Protests Did Not Feel Organic

Speaking to Drop Site News, an Iranian essayist and photographer who witnessed the protests, Kaveh Rostamkhani, said the shift in Iran’s protests did not feel “organic.” While market-driven demonstrations in Tehran had clear economic demands, he said events elsewhere followed a different pattern. The unrest in small towns erupted “simultaneously,” and became “very radical.”

“It lacked something natural,” Rostamkhani said, adding that “it felt as if the means were to provoke reactions from the Iranian regime,” even as he stressed that the initial protests were rooted in real and legitimate grievances.