Landline phones cut in parts of Iran, eyewitnesses say

Summary

“Honorable merchants; support, support!” When security forces arrived, the most urgent refrain was not yet a political manifesto. It was a promise of mutual protection: “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid; we’re all in this together.”From there, the videos show how quickly what many initially read as an economic protest widened into something explicitly political.Iran International reviewed 463 clips from the uprising’s first 10 days – recorded in 91 cities, towns and villages – and coded every instance in which chants were clearly audible. Across the footage, we identified 93 distinct chants heard across 641 recorded chant instances, or occurrences of chants in the videos, not a count of unique slogans or unique events.The slogans heard across that footage trace a rapid shift: from strike calls and solidarity to direct rejection of the Islamic Republic and, increasingly, calls for the return of monarchy.That first day, the footage was narrow. Beyond one clip from Shoush market – where merchants chanted, “Pezeshkian, have some shame; give up the presidency” – few other slogans from outside the merchants’ immediate world were clearly audible in the videos we reviewed.On the second day, strike calls such as “Close up, close up” still echoed through the bazaars – but the protest vocabulary broke decisively into open confrontation with the Islamic Republic.In Tehran, chants like “Until the cleric is buried, this homeland won’t become a homeland” and “Cannons, tanks, fireworks; mullahs must go” signaled a shift from trade grievance to political defiance.That same day, a line surfaced that would come to define the first 10 days in our video analysis: “This is the final battle; Pahlavi will return.”From this point forward, the uprising’s slogans were no longer simply about pressure or protest. They were about power – and what should replace it.The pro-Pahlavi chant was heard in universities too, surprising some observers and even triggering accusations of video manipulations...