Comment by jeswin
2 days ago
What explains the silence from activists outside Iran on this particular issue? I see relatively limited coverage on global media. Iranians seem to be fighting this alone, and dying by the thousands.
Perhaps we know, but the reasons will be unpopular.
There's limited coverage of all global conflicts, certainly in American media, but quite likely in other Western media.
> What explains the silence from activists outside Iran on this particular issue?
What explains the silence from the media on all other conflicts. It's certainly not because lives are not being destroyed in Sudan [1] and Myanmar [2].
1. https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/01/1166738
2. https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/09/1166004
> There's limited coverage of all global conflicts
Not exactly. There's a singular exception which has received torrential "coverage".
Lack of shock images, and lack of personnel for humanitarian orgs. Protests and killings are happening outside of the locations MSF is implanted, and even if we have stories from doctors prevented from helping shot protesters, we don't have videos (and in the last few years and especially the last two weeks, doctors finally understood no one cared if they were prevented to help, since it was acceptable in France and even in the US).
The only NGO looking for Iran exclusively is Iran Human Right (https://iranhr.net/en/) and depend on the UNHRC, which is not particularly media trained and not good at reacting (also, they lost US funding less than a year ago and are reorganizing as we speak).
In the end, it will be like Yemen or Sudan all over again: media hear of the massacre late, send journalists, journalists get refused, they send journalists to neighboring countries and infiltrate with local guide help, some journalist dies, and three month after the beginning of the trouble we will get images and information.
Probably the activists are hesitant because the US is rearing to start a war with Iran (that will certainly kill way more civilians) and they don’t want to contribute to that decision.
US activists against IDF wanted US to stop arming and funding and enabling genocide directly. Many IDF soldiers are also from the US or go back and forth.
US isn’t arming or funding or enabling Iran directly, so calls for US action would mean call to war, which US leadership has already been signaling.
Maybe you think US should go to war. Regardless that’s the biggest difference.
There are also frankly many who are confused about Iran - sympathizing with Iran leadership as enemies of IDF and not understanding who they are and what they do. Lack of video going around doesn’t help.
In America at least, we saw protests against some of the things Israel did in Gaza because the US government is supporting Israel. Since the US is not a supporter of Iran, and in fact has been strong adversary for decades, there is less reason to protest here. Plus, we’ve got some serious problems of our own that are keeping us occupied at the moment
It's true that the recipient of the protest might be different, but that's no reason to be quiet.
China in Tibet, China's treatment of the Uyghurs, Russia's war against Ukraine, Kony 2012 etc, there are lots of causes where the local government in whichever country you look at isn't actively involved, yet there was a lot more public noise and campaigns.
I don't know what the answer is, but "my government doesn't deliver weapons to them" hasn't been a reason before, so I don't see why it would be now.
US government policy is completely aligned with the goal of stopping Iran from doing this, there is no reason to protest the US government on this issue.
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China in Tibet manifestation were mostly thanks to the Dalai Lama. Without a spiritual chief in exile, no one would have cared.
The Uighur is easy: Nike and a lots of western brand used Chinese work camps. In my neighborhood that's what people protested, not really Chinese treatment of their minority, but the fact our brands used slave labor. Nike and all no promised they wouldn't use slave again, the Uighur are still discriminated and forcefully sterilized, no one care anymore in the West.
Russia war against Ukraine is very different, it's the first war in Europe since the 90s, and the first "real" war in europe since 45 (I guarantee you if Ukraine folded in 3 days, no one would have said much). Also, Europe is financing the Russian war economy, which is easy to protest.
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But the protests weren’t limited to Ameica, there were protests all over the world, including in Muslim countries.
And the outrage wasn’t always directed at the government. We don’t see Iranian students in the US being attacked. We don’t see Iranian places of worship in the US being attacked. We don’t see as much outrage in the comments on HN - there were some event justifying it.
Iranian-Americans are almost universally people who fled Iran during or after the revolution, they are almost all hostile to the current ruling regime. Why would anyone attack them over what Iran is doing? Even Jewish Americans haven't been attacked over what Israel is doing in Gaza, despite them having large numbers of dual-citizens and majority support for Israel.
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Quite possibly because they don't want to become the US and Israel's useful idiots - contributing to calls for war that could easily lead to the deaths of millions if past experience is anything to go by.
If the US were serious about the well-being of Iranian people they'd stop trying to screw the economy and foment violent unrest, but of course that is not what they are interested in. They want war. They want regime change. They want balkanisation.
Pretty easy actually. The only leverage we have over Iran is military action, which I think historical precedent shows will lead to worse outcomes for everyone involved.
The way I see it, any support for Iranians will be co-opted to start a war with Iran, which will be a disaster.
This isn't the case for Israel / Gaza, which is what I assume you're alluding to when you talk about activism.
Islam and Neoliberal wests are the strangest bedfellows. Thankfully people like Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and many others pointed the oddities long before many others made it us vs them political. Palestinian cause is used to drown any other legitimate concerns about ideology
Richard Dawkins is a weirdo crank these days who's co-authoring questionable books woth sex offenders about transgender issues. And the one thing Christopher Hitchens was most right about was Israel, he was an anti-zionist.
And the neoliberal west has more in common with Israel than Iran, I don't quite understand why you choose to write broad political comments if you don't have the basic background knowledge that would be needwd in this discussion.
It is not broad political comment. If you read the original text and sunnahs as well as follow the interpretations of a lot of scholars like Zakir Naik and others that are unapologetic the truth that is conveniently hidden in discussions easily comes out.
The entirety of the world does not run on Western neoliberal lens and every region has had its history and challenges and fights that due to cognitive limits during discussion are never given their legitimate space.
This can apply to grooming gangs in UK, the conditions of minorities in middle east (Yazidis or others)
An individual who might have an issue with a broad ideology that considers all non believers as subhuman to be converted, killed or brought into the said ideology by hook or crook can be motivated with their own experiences.
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Because for some strange reason majority of activist accounts stopped posting when Iran turned off internet
There's no activism because everybody agrees it's terrible. If your govt is already cutting out Iran and sanctioning them, there's no need to demand action.
This is very different from Israel, where our govts are actively supporting a genocide. That requires activism to change course.
Why would people demonstrate if everyone is aligned?
> If your govt is already cutting out Iran and sanctioning them, there's no need to demand action.
“Human beings are members of a whole
In creation of one essence and soul
If one member is afflicted with pain
Other members uneasy will remain
If you have no sympathy for human pain
The name of human you cannot retain”
—Saadi, Persian poet
Protests were about US's inaction in Gaza as much as its support for Israel. Why no such protests now? Why aren't there thousands of people gathering demanding US doing something to help Iran's people?
The US was not inactive in Gaza. It was actively supporting, funding and and arming a genocide. Currently the Trump administration is actively engaged in a process to clean up the Gaza strip, rebuild it with the money of other countries, and finally hand it over to Israel for free (for who do you think those nice skyscrapers would be built, for the Palestinians? Lol).
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Because Persians are fighting islam (they're burning down mosques).
and the islamic regime was a sponsor of previous pro-palestine movements.
leftists don't find this an appealing mix. they'd rather blame Israel for everything, but here we see Iranians siding with the Israelis because they've seen what islam does to their country.
I very much doubt they are fighting Islam. Most of them are Muslims. They are fighting fundamentalist Islam. DO you have any evidence they are doing this or "siding with the Israelis"? The fundamentalist Islamist Saudi's seem to get on with Israel fine these days.
I think its simpler. There is no one white involved. What is unique about Israel is that most of its population is white so its an issue worth covering (for people backing either side). The same with Ukraine. On the other hand what happens in Eritrea or Sudan or Myanmar or Xinjiang does not matter.
I'm Persian. most Iranians are NOT muslim; that's what the islamic regime's propaganda has tried to convey for 47 years. if anything, many who were already muslim became atheists after seeing the atrocities of the regime in the past decades.
Iran's population is also overwhelmingly pro-West.
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This is a straw man in my opinion. But regardless of that, your theory doesn't explain why conservative media isn't really covering this either - The Iran protests haven't exactly been front page material on Fox News or OAN or Breitbart
the conservative media is covering it. Prince Reza Pahlavi (the leader of the revolution) has appeared on Fox several times. Mark Levin, Rep. senators (Graham, etc.) constantly talk about how we should urgently help Iranians in their fight for freedom.
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It doesn't erase Israel's genocide, but the question is still valid: why don't these crimes against Iran's own citizens evoke international outrage?
First of all, knowing well that the US has been looking for excuses to attack Iran for the past, I don't know, twenty years at least, I am extremely suspicious of information about the numbers of these massacres. I know perfectly well that a media campaign filled with horrific reports is going to precede an attack by the US to either reduce the country in ruins or to a puppet state. I am also quite suspicious that these protests might be somehow encouraged by the US precisely for the same purpose. I mean, if Russian propaganda can influence foreign countries, I can't put a limit to what USA's power in the IT and social media space can do.
Besides this, of course when atrocities are perpetrated by an ally with whom you entertain friendly diplomatic, commercial and military relationships, it makes a lot of sense to protest: you have some leverage. When they are committed by an enemy country with which you have already severed any relationship, protests are pointless.
Because Iran claims foreign-backed terrorists were behind all the murder and destruction - backed by Israel, the US and UK.
Mossad has openly said they have people in Iran, and Israeli media has said they've sent weapons to the "protestors" in Iran. Senior figures in the US government have alluded to the same.
Many videos have been published by Iranians online, which certainly do not show "peaceful protestors" - they show gangs of masked men beating random civilians to death, fire-bombing buses and ambulance; they show leaders dishing out weapons and satellite comms devices, and trained men using assault rifles to attack civilians and the police.
We've also seem video of over a million Iranians marching in Tehran in support of the government, and in protest of the foreign-back terrorists.
And we have the MSM happily parroting any death figures they get, from anyone... even if they are literally from Pahlavi's mate or a CIA "human rights" group based in Langley!
We should all be more sceptical when our media and governments try to gain consent for war, and we should be asking who stands to gain - it's certainly not us, the people.
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The principle we ought to follow is the principle we expected Soviet dissidents to follow.
What principle did we expect Andrei Sakharov [a Soviet scientist punished for his criticism of the U.S.S.R.] to follow? Why did people decide that Sakharov was a moral person?
Sakharov did not treat every atrocity as identical-he had nothing to say about American atrocities. When he was asked about them, he said, "I don't know anything about them, I don't care about them, what I talk about are Soviet atrocities."
And that was right-because those were the ones that he was responsible for, and that he might have been able to influence. Again, it's a very simple ethical point: you are responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions, you're not responsible for the predictable consequences of somebody else's actions.
Conversely, how do we view the protests in the USSR against jim crow laws under stalin? They surely existed, but of what consequence were they? None whatsoever.
I want people to be REAL careful about "Israel obviously committed a genocide"
All those people brutally murdered on October 7 don't just disappear. Whatever you think about Israel's response it's kind of amazing the main focus is on the "big bad" of Israel
There were pro-Pally protests on October 8! If not October 7. Before the bodies were cool, so to speak
If you were pro-Palestine it is absolutely your moral duty to not just be silent. There is absolutely no ambiguity here. The Islamic Republic is slaughtering Iranians
Edit: And I don't give a damn if this is "construed as hostile", if you downvote me for this (Already one in the last minute) you do not deserve the 500 karma you have to be able to downvote me. I, in fact, suggest that you delete your account
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Please define what you think Zionist means. I have no idea WTF it means since Israel exists as a Jewish state for 76 years.
> Please define what you think Zionist means. I have no idea WTF it means since Israel exists as a Jewish state for 76 years.
If you don't know what words mean, why is that my problem?
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Nobody in the west actually cares about injustice. They just pretend to care when it's politically convenient.
Unfortunately, ABC and NBC haven't found a way to blame Trump for what's happening in Iran. Highlighting the atrocities perpetuated in the name of Islam is more likely to help Trump than hurt him, so this story must be minimized. It's just good, smart politics.
Religion and virtue signaling.
People are not being told to be outraged about it via whatever social media platform.
This article right here, and the countless that came before are telling people to be outraged. People aren't, partly because they don't know what to believe without really any reliable or unbiased reporting, partly because the Trump outrage machine has filled the news feeds with so much other stuff to be outraged about, and partly because the situation in the Middle East seems so futile and stupid that people don't want to care because nothing will change and no government with any say in the region will allow peace or democracy or self-determination to the people there.