THE NEW YORK TIMES: The authorities are making mass arrests, seizing assets and hunting down doctors who treated protesters. Some Iranians keep showing defiance anyway.
The protests are largely over in Iran, crushed by the heavy hand of the government, but the retribution is just beginning.
Doctors who treated injured protesters have been swept up in mass arrests, beloved businesses have been seized and shuttered, and critical media has been silenced — all to stamp out the possibility of further unrest.
Even families holding funerals for loved ones killed during the crackdown have been ordered not to cry in public.
Several rights groups estimate that up to 40,000 people have been detained since protests began, many on charges of being “rioters” or “terrorists.” Many have made televised confessions that rights groups say are likely forced.
Activists say the scope and scale of the repression tactics are perhaps the most sweeping in the Islamic Republic’s history.
“It’s collective punishment,” said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of Iran Human Rights, an Oslo-based organization. “They want to traumatize a whole generation, so they won’t rise up again.”
The severity of the crackdown reflects how much Iran’s clerical leaders feel they have their backs to the wall, analysts say.
In addition to an ever-deepening economic crisis, which set off protests in late December that snowballed into a nationwide movement, the government also has to reckon with the possibility of a U.S. attack. » | Erika Solomon, Leily Nikounazar and Sanam Mahoozi | Thursday, Februray 5, 2026
