As details of the death toll for January’s protests continue to emerge, three students explain why they are resisting a return to normality
More than 45 days after a brutal January crackdown that left thousands of Iranian protesters dead, students across several universities are protesting again. As Iran’s new academic term began on Saturday, students in Tehran gathered on campus, chanting anti-government slogans, despite a heavy security presence and plainclothes officers stationed outside university gates.
The Guardian spoke to protesting students about why they were rallying despite the fact that thousands had been killed and tens of thousands arrested in the January demonstrations.
“Our classrooms are empty because the graveyards are full,” said Hossein*, 21, a student at the University of Tehran. “It’s for them – our friends, classmates and compatriots, who were gunned down in front of our eyes, that we decided to boycott the classes.”
weapons of mass destruction ass consent manufacturing excuse. they meaning to tell me more people died in iran rn than gaza.
i don’t believe a word from murderous us media or their nazi leadership.
Dude. The war mongers jumped on this thread. When I initially replied to your comment it was top. Lemmy is becoming like reddit. It’s fucking pathetic how many “anti trump” libs are onboard with bombing a country into freedom.
sadly, lemmy.world is now similar to reddit in a wide variety of ways.
The Guardian is british.
It’s cute when British people think they’re not just a colony of US imperialism. I know I know. You have your royal pedophiles the same way we have our pedophile billionaires. It makes you feel independent and sovereign.
Maybe you’re not British. But I hope you are. Even American hogs know the Brits are dogs to whatever American rulers want.
I’m not. And you are nothing but insulting.
Also it’s owned by a non-profit trust. As peak as you can really get when it comes journalistic integrity structures.
Oh well that’s a relief. British newspaper. The people that called bin Laden a freedom fighter. Totally not a mouth piece for war in the middle east.
and manufacturing consent for a us invasion of iran, yes.
That’s a claim you’d need to provide evidence for. Really, really good evidence.
Will you accept evidence? Or will you downvote and call me a Russian bot?
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/jan/26/letters.iraq1
That’s a classic consent-making move: the debate becomes when invasion is justified, not whether the West has the right to invade at all.
“the government argued its actions ‘undoubtedly’ saved civilian lives in Libya.” “required decisive and collective international action”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/25/british-government-intervention-libya-saved-lives
Even when the article notes criticism, this kind of repetition of official justification is exactly what sourcing/agenda-setting critiques focus on.
A no-fly zone is an act of war (you enforce it with force). But it’s often discussed as a humanitarian “measure.” The Guardian’s reporting frames it that way:
“a potential no-fly zone over Syria to protect civilians”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/12/may-questions-syria-no-fly-zone-proposal
And then the debate becomes technocratic (“who enforces it?”) rather than moral/anti-imperial (“who gets to control Syrian airspace?”). Example of that framing inside the piece: “Who would enforce that safe area?”
“All sides should contribute to halting the cycle of violence”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/13/guardian-view-conflict-in-gaza
Same editorial also uses the legitimacy gateway line: “Israel has a right to defend itself”
And frames it in a way to not directly endorse it, but still assert it by not stating the objectively moral rebuttal: Gaza has the right to defend itself.
Here they outright assert it: “Israel has a right to defend itself and a duty to protect its citizens.” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/13/the-guardian-view-on-gazas-casualties-mounting-calls-for-a-ceasefire-must-be-heeded
This is a very strong legitimising phrasing because it implies the violence is mainly a matter of proper execution rather than structural injustice / siege / occupation: “Israel has a right to defend itself by all legitimate means.” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/07/observer-view-only-ceasefire-save-israel-from-crisis
This is exactly the kind of moral language that can slide into collective punishment logic (even if the editorial later adds caveats): “Hamas had to be punished severely and forcibly dislodged from its perch in Gaza.” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/06/the-observer-view-on-the-middle-east-a-year-on-there-is-only-one-way-to-a-credible-peace
This rhetorical move invites readers to inhabit the state’s mindset. another common consent mechanism: “Confronted by all this, Israelis ask, reasonably enough: what would you do?” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/06/the-observer-view-on-the-middle-east-a-year-on-there-is-only-one-way-to-a-credible-peace
Not genocide, guardian. You shouldn’t do genocide.
Even when labelled “alleged,” this piece foregrounds the IDF narrative and evidence drops in a way that can function as justification-for-bombing context:
“alleged evidence released by the IDF to support its claims that Hamas uses… Gaza as human shields” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/30/human-shield-israel-claim-hamas-command-centre-under-hospital-palestinian-civilian-gaza-city
“Israel has cited what it says are numerous examples of Hamas using human shields” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/30/human-shield-israel-claim-hamas-command-centre-under-hospital-palestinian-civilian-gaza-city
“It claims Hamas has placed… command network under… al-Shifa hospital.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/30/human-shield-israel-claim-hamas-command-centre-under-hospital-palestinian-civilian-gaza-city
you can believe Hamas uses civilian cover and still see how this repeated framing becomes a ready-made moral alibi for mass civilian killing. We know Israel uses Palestinians as human shields, they’ll literally strap children to the windshield of jeeps to shield them, why don’t they cite that as rebuttal? Why don’t they cite that as justification for attacking IDF?
On their funding: Guardian Media Group says it runs a “diverse revenue model” including “reader revenues, advertising… licensing and philanthropic funding.” https://www.theguardian.com/about/organisation
And it says “Revenue from readers now accounts for over 50%” which also means a large share is still non-reader money (ads, licensing, etc.)
Their own annual reporting stresses growth in reader revenue, but they’re still operating in the same media ecosystem: big audience incentives, elite access journalism, reliance on official sources, and the kinds of “respectable” foreign policy frames that dominate UK/US politics. (That’s exactly what “manufacturing consent” critiques are about: structures, not cartoon villain owners.)
Read Manufacturing Consent, then come back and tell me they don’t.
Or downvote and maybe throw an insult my way, that works too.
Really? You could not do it without weird and undounded assumptions? C’mon, grow up.
Anyway, I appriciate you provide actual reasoning for your arguments. I’ll read into it.
It’s what happens every time. I’m sorry, that was unnecessary, I felt burnt out.
Here’s a detailed article on The Guardian being couped by Zionists:
How The Guardian’s editor-in-chief caved to pro-Israel pressure.
It’s unfathomable to me how, after western media carrying 3 years of endless Zionist propaganda, there’s still any modicum of respect for them among progressives.
You gotta remember that most people today supporting Palestine and understanding what was done to Gaza was a genocide are recent things.
They hit a breaking point after two years of genocide that could not be denied. These are the same type of people that were “always against it” after the fact.
This is how it goes. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq again, etc. They don’t actually have a means of understanding it until they see the aftermath. They don’t look at the material interest and where they will inevitably lead. They are only capable of reacting to the results. And until there are results they will only listen to the intentions. The intentions that they read in media. Not the real intentions of those that own that media.
I’m sure, you, personally understand this. I’m mostly just leaving this comment as an opportunity for the few that WILL be able to think through the media narratives.
The media is going to tell truths about Irans human rights violations. But it will ignore the same for Israel for decades. Why? Because it doesn’t care about those violations. It cares about how it can make you believe what it does NEXT is justified.
I would believe anything regarding foreign policy coming from a bloodthirsty brit.
This is The Guardian, a left leaning paper or left of centre at least.
“left of centre” is doing a lot of work there.
Not only in your obvious British spelling of center but in the other obvious way. You Brits turn your nose up on Trump supporters but for some reason fall for the same garbage war propaganda. Hell, even our MAGA voters are turning against Trump on Iran intervention. Are you guys ok over there? Are you just larping as MAGA supporters on that island?
It says a lot when you call the guardian “left”. I swear you guys are further behind class conciseness than folks in the US southern states.
Calling an institution that reports to and serves the interest of capital “left” basically destroys all meaning of the word.
Or are even you Brits using “left” to mean “liberal”. Like, have we exported our American brain rot that fucking hard?
I think you’re reading way more into my comment than intended.
I just meant centre-left in the conventional media/political spectrum sense used in the UK, not a deep ideological classification.
TheGuardian claimed to have seen video and pictures of Hamas raping women on October 7.
Those videos and pictures later turned out to not exist.
no, you are the one who has to stop inventing shit to invade countries in your fascist crusade.
I am doing nothing. You are claiming bullshit and don’t even know jackshit about the news outlets you’re making up shit about.
Also, I’m not even from the US.
you are literally inventing shit to justify another genocide. burden of proof rests on you.
we are very aware of the guardian’s propaganda AND us terror campaigns (that begin with exactly this sort of lie).
What did I invent, exactly?
Evidence or GTFO.
He’s from .ml, he won’t ever offer evidence, he’ll just continue to accuse you of all the worst things he can think of.
Removed by mod
What? You don’t believe “Hossein, 21”, they named him and everything! You want to see actual evidence! You can’t believe that I’m 2026 not a single person recorded a video of said massacres on their phone?
The Iranian government cut off internet and satellite connections nationwide during the massacres. And some videos did still manage to leak out.
That’s not how satellite connection works, though? The US smuggled 6000 starlink terminals into Iran.
Frequencies can be jammed, you know…
Not country-wide…
But in all the cities where it matters
You cannot frequency jam an entire city either bruv, the way they were preventing Starlink usage was by detecting emitted radio signals of that frequency and going in person to arrest the users and confiscate the equipment.
Okay… so you admit they were heavily censoring it?
The internet has been back for a while now, and there’s no chance nobody could have leaked anything. Israel cut off internet power and was actively bombing every neighborhood of Gaza and footage still got out.
Don’t be silly.
Footage did get out of Iran, you just haven’t looked for it because then you’d have to reconsider your belief in the mullah’s moral pedestal
Go ahead and share that footage.
I don’t believe the Iranian government is moral or good, I just know American imperialism and genocidal war is worse.
Again, go ahead and share that footage. I find it highly unlikely that the western media reporting obscene casualty numbers in the tens of thousands isn’t sharing any of that footage and instead just quoting a random first name, but I’m open to being wrong. Go ahead and share the footage you’ve seen that I haven’t been able to find…
Why would I put effort into finding videos that I’ve already seen, just to show you when you’re already sealioning?
You can be confidently wrong, I don’t care.
Because you’re a lying piece of shit…
The people that would benefit most of showing this footage are for some mysterious reason censoring it, and you’re so concerned about the supposed crimes the Iranian government committed that you’re unwilling to share this supposed evidence you’ve seen to spread awareness while you beat your war drum and encourage a war of total destruction on millions of people and incredible devastation on the whole region.
Really, you think I’m fucking bluffing? Then how do you explain this?
Or these articles from Amnesty International, Associated Press, BBC, and Independent?
Go ahead. What BS are you gonna come up with to try to justify this authoritarian brutality?
When/where did I do that? Point to the thing I said that fits that description.
You can’t, because I didn’t. That’s just a pathetic strawman, because you can’t handle the truth that you’re wrong.
It’s insane. Gaza is over two years of bombing turning it into a parking lot. Like, many people have been killed in Iran during the recent months. It’s just gross to report numbers that are not physically possible.
I saw one report that MORE than 80,000 in 2 days. The last time that many people died in such a short amount of time was when we dropped two nuclear weapons on Japan. Did Iran nuke itself? Like, how can anyone print that number?
Not to mention, the solution to this is apparently for the US and Israel to do exactly what Israel did to Gaza to Iran.
Edit: Everyone just purposely misunderstanding my comment below.
(1) I never said or implied the 80k number was from a credible source.
(2) I sure as hell never said it was the guardian.
(3) Pointing to “more” credible sources on the numbers is not related to my comment. All sources at this point are SIGNIFICANTLY less credible than the very conservative “Hamas Run Health” numbers that all of you libs discredited for over a year. Stop getting excited at death tolls that, at this point, only serve to justify MORE death at the hands of US intervention.
(4) Any number printed by western media or it’s organizations should be questioned BECAUSE of their aligned interest with Israel and the interest of American Imperialism. Iran is NOT a US Ally like Israel. Any coverage of its REAL human rights violations will be reported in the same way it would Hamas.
(5) The Iranian people are my concern. The people using “death tolls” to further US intervention are the same idiots that would have supported the invasion of Iraq. And yes, this includes the “sources” inside Iran begging Trump to come bomb their country with freedom.
I was literally simply saying that at the time of the protests and Internet blackouts that the media went spreading unverified numbers to grab clicks. One of which had it as high as 80k. A number spread on social media and printed as a “some say” in garbage outlets that just wanted to get clicks for numbers.
I provided two sources of this bogus claim below. And I never meant it more than a comment about how false information spreads online. Especially when it favors the narrative of a demented old man we call a president.
Fucking liberals are are so war hungry that they are more focused on nitpicking a comment critizing the spread of pro war propaganda that they’ll be upset when you point it out.
I was in the same spot in 2023 trying to explain what lead to October 7th. In 2-3 years maybe you’ll understand why you should be critical of any reports and justifications for US intervention. Whether that number is 20k or 80k. You’re missing the fucking point.
DOES USA INTERVENTION MAKE IRANIANS LIVES BETTER?
Iraq and many other countries can tell you that answer.
Where did you get that report? Most I saw was 30k over 3 weeks
To be clear. I wasn’t saying it was credible.
https://x.com/i/status/2014484450315293173
This was the one going around at the time I was talking about. I know there were articles at the time citing this as evidence as well. But, it looks like that’s been purged from most articles.
I know that number was spoken on Fox News as well at some point. But I’d have to dig for the clip. Just the usual, “some reports saying as high as 80,000” vague propaganda from a guest interview.
Ok but you said you saw a report and now you’re linking me a tweet
Can you link us the actual report?
I’m not sure why you are acting like I’m the one that said there was a valid verifiable report of this. My initial comment was literally talking about how people were lying about the numbers and saying it was “reported as 80,000”
This was the propaganda going around Twitter. A “report” can literally just be someone from inside Iran reporting on it. Which is exactly what that tweet was.
Maybe I worded my comment poorly? I was pointing to the absurdity of a number like 80,000 being taken seriously. And now for some reason you want a verified report of that? I’m so confused.
Instead of cherrypicking non-credible sources so you can point to the absurd numbers they claim, why don’t you check some credible sources to see what the actual numbers are?
For instance, from Amnesty International:
Why would you say
when no one printed it?
You’re using it to back up someone saying we can’t “trust the murderous media” but it’s just lies
Look dude. Just because you were not paying attention to articles at the time doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
https://www.reddit.com/r/NewIran/s/mEVnnKEJ4w
This same shit was spreading around social media and many news outlets printed “some estimates inside Iran put the number at 80,000”.
It was bull shit and every single outlet that printed it has modified their reports since. I’m not sure why it’s so hard for you to believe that the media grabbed the largest number they could and ran with it for a day.
I’ve shown you where this number came from. It’s not “just a post on Twitter”. It was from inside the country during a total internet blackout. The media ate it up for a day because there was nothing else coming out of Iran at the time.
Why is this so hard to understand? What evidence are you looking for? Because it’s gonna be tweets or “way back machine” articles from Fox/NewsMax or Israeli newspapers. I’ll find them tonight if I have time. But you are just as capable of looking.
Yes, believe it or not, I made a comment about something that I literally saw happening in real time and didn’t bookmark. Fuck me right?
Reddit/NewIran
with source… just a post on twitter
If this claim is correct it’d indeed be easy to prove using the Internet Archive. If you’re watching NewsMax and telling us it’s proof we shouldn’t trust the press then… yeah
Looks to me like you’ve been duped by Khamenei’s alt account on twitter and concluded you should look away and go back to sleep