This is the Cato Daily podcast for Saturday, November 26, 2022.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Protests in Iran continue to highlight the struggle against mandated religious practice by Iran's government,

Kato's Mustafa Akyol comments.

What is happening in Iran is both fascinating and tragic. It's fascinating in the sense that for two

months by now the Iranian people like hundreds of thousands of them have been coming out in the streets to condemn a regime that is brutally authoritarian.

So that has a tall. I mean that takes really a courage.

People are coming out and saying death with the dictator, meaning the

tap Ayatollah, Alejame, down with the regime. And the regime response with brutality at least 300 protesters have been killed

more than 300 protesters some of them it's at least 50 of them, actually,

are children.

Because the average age of the protesters is 15,

so there are a lot of young people younger than 18 on the streets. The regime also arrested about 14,000 people. One of these have been given the death sentence just recently and human rights groups are thinking other debt sentences are on the way.

The Iranian parliament actually called on the judiciary

to give debt sentences to the protesters

and we will see how that will go. But despite all that

people are so fed up with the sole territorial regime that they are bravely coming

out and they say they want a free area you're on.

To what extent are women leading this?

Because that seemed to have been a lot of the impetus at least initially to

throw off the hijab and of course that is both a real protest in terms of I don't like to wear hijab

but it's also symbolic as a broader subjugation of women in that country.

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