Islamic Republic faces most fundamental challenge from within since 1979 revolution

Akhtar Makoii

The Telegraph

The police cars arrived at the park in Tehran just as Arshia and his friends hit their rhythm. [videos here]

He and 13 other teenagers, boys and girls together, had been rapping and dancing.

They scattered before the police officers opened their car doors.

“We were in a park rapping with a group of friends when several police cars arrived. They pulled over, and we ran,” Arshia, 19, said from Tehran, laughing at the memory.

Then he said something that captures why the Islamic Republic faces its most fundamental challenge from within since the 1979 revolution.

“We knew the police would come for us, and that is the fun part of it. We kind of want them to come. Running from them is fun.”

Police caught him last year when he was not “lucky”. They called his father. He went home. The next weekend, he was back in the park.

Across Iran, Generation Z is defying the Islamic Republic in ways the regime has not confronted in its 46-year history.

Armed with smartphones and connected to a world beyond state television, young Iranians are rejecting the rules that governed their parents’ lives – from the mandatory hijab and restrictions on dancing, dating and music.

Unlike their parents, who grew up during the Iran-Iraq war and the revolution’s early repression, Gen Z has always had access to information from outside Iran’s borders. They watch what teenagers wear in Seoul, follow make-up trends from Los Angeles and stream music from around the world.

And they are refusing to accept that their lives should be governed by rules from 1979.

That difference is everywhere. In parks, where teenagers dance to rap music criticising the execution of prisoners. In apartments, where unmarried couples live together. On Instagram, where young women post videos without a hijab. On streets, where girls remove their headscarves and walk past the morality police.

“These children are remarkably different and worthy of study, often disregarding rules they view as unfair,” a high-school teacher in Tehran said.

“Unlike our generation, which was often frustrated by such laws but eventually conformed, they actively ignore them.”

Such defiance has consequences in Iran. And the Islamic Republic is cracking down, arresting young people and taking them to police stations.

Rapper Abbas Daghagheleh knew what could happen. Other rappers had been arrested. Some had been tortured.

He kept writing songs anyway.

Known to fans as Rashash, the 22-year-old Iranian Arab rapper worked in construction in Tehran by day and made music by night.

Despite living in a region that generates much of Iran’s oil wealth, Arab communities face high unemployment, environmental degradation, and systemic discrimination.

His songs spoke of discrimination against Iran’s Arab minority, of poverty in Khuzestan province, and of young activists who disappeared.

In many of his songs, he says that, as a child, he was forced to quit school and clean education establishments instead of sitting at a study desk.

On Oct 10, security forces raided his home. They confiscated his phone and recording equipment before taking him away.

Rashash’s arrest came days after he posted Instagram stories about six Arab political prisoners executed in Ahvaz.

He is among at least a dozen Gen Z protest rappers arrested in recent months as authorities target artists who criticise the government through music.

The crackdown has been systematic. State media recently broadcast forced confession videos of three Tehran rappers.

Danial Farrokhi (known as Meshki, which means black in Persian), Ardalan, and Sajjad Shahi appeared on screen after their arrests.

Tehran security police claimed they arrested the trio for “publishing unconventional content and controversial works on social media”.

Human rights sources say Mr Farrokhi had produced songs critical of Iranian military actions, including during a 12-day war with Israel >>>