Pandemics and Politics: Iran’s Mahsa Amini Protests

Pandemics and Politics: Iran’s Mahsa Amini Protests

Iranian protestors on the Keshavrz Boulvard – Taken on 20 September 2022 – Image source Throughout history, many political changes have been deeply influenced by medical crises.  Consider the beginning of Homer’s Iliad, where a plague threatened King Agamemnon’s  leadership.1 In the Middle Ages, plagues overthrew sovereign powers of Islamic civilization.2 In  19th-century Iran, a cholera pandemic had a devastating impact on the Qajar state.34 As…

In its latest final report, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran denounces serious human rights violations committed by the Iranian authorities, following the mass protests that followed the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, in September 2022. Ms. Amini, from the Iranian Kurdish community, […]