Analysts through the weekend and into Monday continued to trace signs that – per a headline published at the top of one Agence France-Presse (AFP) story – Rouhani’s “honeymoon” with the Iranian public was over amid evidence that he was either unable or unwilling to implement promised social reforms and economic improvements.
AFP had last week reported on what the wire described as Rouhani’s “first major political defeat,” after 95 percent of Iranians chose to accept government hand-outs that his government had urged they forgo. The second AFP story, published on Sunday, assessed that “the public’s goodwill towards [Rouhani] is showing the first signs of fading” due to stalled economic progress.
Meanwhile the Jerusalem Post reported on the fallout from reports – which had recently been revealed by the Wall Street Journal – that there had recently been a mass beating of imprisoned Iranian dissidents incarcerated in the country’s Evin prison. The Post described a growing movement to show solidarity with the political prisoners:
The world powers’ negotiation with Tehran over its nuclear military work has overshadowed the Islamic Republic’s deteriorating human rights situation and outbreaks of social protest. Just last week, Iranian men and women posted pictures on social media of themselves with shaved heads to promote solidarity with beaten political prisoners in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison. Prison authorities conducted, according to Iranian diaspora and reform websites in the country, a massive assault on Evin’s Ward 350 – the section used to incarcerate political dissidents.
”More than 30 prisoners were injured and at least four inmates were taken to a hospital outside the jail because they were bleeding or sustained fractures,” according to the Iranian website Kaleme.
The outlet also contextualized the developments against broader trends in the Islamic republic:
With 25 percent of the Islamic Republic’s population unemployed or underemployed, the ingredients are present for mushrooming social unrest.
Taken together, the lack of legal venues for Iranians to address their injustices and the fragile economy might, just might, create a mass movement that mirrors the 2009 Green Revolution calling for greater democracy.
Reports published on Saturday indicated that Iranian officials had officially banned the reformist newspaper Ebtekar, the third such move in recent months.