The fragility of the Iranian regime is being exposed

A wave of protest is sweeping across Iran. Sparked by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old who allegedly contravened oppressive and arbitrary laws on veils, demonstrators are taking to the streets in towns and cities across the country.

Ever since Ebrahim Raisi became president last summer in a widely derided Potemkin election, a crackdown on those who refuse to wear the veil has been gathering pace, with women manhandled and harassed by Iran’s notorious ‘morality’ police. Raisi regards veiling as the frontline in a continuing cultural war against western moral corruption, which he clearly feels Iran is losing.

But now the crackdown on the veil has backfired. Since Amini’s death there have been five successive days of unrest in multiple cities, with women burning their veils in public and at least seven killed since the protests began. The fragility of a state gripped by paranoid delusions of religious sanctity is being exposed.

The regime has clearly been surprised by the depth of the anger following Amini’s death, even if it has reacted in predictable ways.