- Protests, sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, have spread across Iran. They feature "death to the dictator" chants.
- Iran's "trajectory" is another revolution, an expert told Insider, but this won't happen any time soon.
- The protest movement lacks the organization needed to topple the regime, Iran experts say.
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The rapidly spreading protests in Iran, sparked by the suspicious death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in Tehran last Friday, are showing no sign of subsiding.
More than 80 cities and towns have been gripped by civil unrest in the past eight days, per BBC News, with police stations torched and women burning their headscarves in displays of resistance. Amnesty International said that at least 30 people, including four children, have died amid the Iranian crackdown on the protests.
The unrest, according to several media outlets, is the worst Iran has seen in several years.
Experts on Iran told Insider that the deadly protests show the population's will for another revolution, which last happened in 1979, but protesters face significant hurdles in accomplishing such a feat.
What are the protests about?
At the surface level, the protests are about the death of a woman who died suspiciously after being arrested by Iran's morality police for allegedly not wearing a hijab properly.
Amini died on Friday, four days after witnesses accused police officers of forcing her into a van and beating her in Tehran, immediately sparking protests in Tehran and her hometown. The protests spread across the country, and the Iranian regime has responded by using police and internet censorship to stifle dissent.
However, the reality is that the civil unrest is symptomatic of a more profound discontent that has been boiling over in Iran for several years, said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, in a conversation with Insider.
"The protests are in response to the death of Mahsa Amini, but the demands being put forward by protesters are for broader social and political change and freedoms," Ghaemi said.
One of those demands is to address gendered discrimination in Iran, Ghaemi added, noting that the burning of hijabs, shaving of heads, and the number of women turning up at protests show that women are fed up with their position in Iranian society.
"Literally half of the country feels discriminated against and wants to put an end to it, and the government violence imposed by the hijab restrictions, particularly in the last few months, has really made women of Iran reach a boiling point," Ghaemi said.
There's also a demand that the government better represent its population, focusing on bread-and-butter issues instead of foreign policy and sustaining its political power, Ghaemi explained.
"The Iranian government and state, and the ruling elite, have decoupled themselves completely from society and the needs of the people," Ghaemi said.