Protesters participate in a demonstration in Berlin on Saturday in support of the protests in Iran against the country's government.Ebrahim Noroozi/The Associated Press

Shirin Ebadi is the founder of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre in Iran and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize.

Payam Akhavan is the Human Rights Chair at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, a founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre, and a former UN prosecutor at The Hague.

The long-suffering people of Iran are at a critical historical juncture. Since the Islamic Republic’s inception 47 years ago, their government has responded to their demands for freedom and prosperity with executions, imprisonment and torture. In 2022, it was the murder of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini for failing to properly wear the hijab that sparked the Woman, Life, Liberty movement – an unprecedented feminist uprising in the Middle East that was extinguished with violent repression. But the fire of discontent has continued to smoulder under the ashes.

In the first days of 2026, it has once again flared, this time in the despair of economic catastrophe and widespread corruption that has brought impoverished millions to........

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