Browse Cases

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Iranians overthrow the Shah, 1977-79

Country
Iran
Time period
May, 1977 to 10 February, 1979
Classification
Change
Cluster
Democracy
Economic Justice
Human Rights
Total points
9 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Lindsay Dolan, 05/06/2009; revised by Aden Tedla, 02/9/2011

Agitation in Iran was visible by May 1977 in predominantly intellectual circles. A group of lawyers—upset by the government’s interference in the judiciary—drafted a strongly worded manifesto chronicling the legal abuses that had occurred under the Shah’s regime. Poets formed a Writers’ Association to call for an end to censorship and the activity of SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police. A National Organization of University Teachers began fighting for academic freedom while university and seminary students called for academic freedom in the schools.

Iranian resistance to Tobacco Concession, 1891-1892

Country
Iran
Time period
Early, 1891 to April, 1892
Classification
Defense
Cluster
Economic Justice
Total points
10 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Markus Schlotterbeck, 16/07/2009

In the late nineteenth century foreign governments were increasingly asserting control, and in some cases Iranian governmental figures adopted a fatalistic attitude about being colonized by Britain or Russia, both of which were competing for power inside Iran. In this atmosphere the shah of Iran signed a secret agreement with a British company in March 1890 granting a concession over all Iranian tobacco.

Iranians general strike for democracy and land reform, 1907

Country
Iran
Time period
May, 1907 to July, 1907
Classification
Change
Cluster
Democracy
Economic Justice
Total points
7 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Alexa Ross 26/9/2010

After a year of striking and sit-ins outside the British Embassy, Iranian citizens were granted a constitution and parliamentary body called the Majlis on August 5, 1906. Democracy was already being expressed on the streets in the form of grassroots anjumans, or councils. Before the Constitutional Revolution in August, these anjumans were secret assemblies of unsatisfied politicians and educated Muslim scholars called ulamas. But following the revolution, the anjumans became open, mass organizations of the kind of democracy Iranians wished to see.