Iran Protests: Here Are 5 Facts You Need to Know
An Unorganized Movement
In contrast to the 2009 protests, which included public figures like former presidential hopeful Mir-Hossein Mousavi, at present the protests lack an official figurehead. In an interview with Slate published Monday, Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, described the demonstrations as "leaderless." "One of the things we have to keep in mind is that these protests, the citizens who are protesting, they're leaderless. They're unorganized. They're unarmed," explained Sadjadpour. "The regime's coercive apparatus, the Revolutionary Guard and the Basij militia, they're heavily armed. They're heavily organized. They have a level of experience with repression and crowd control."
