The Prison Carousel: How 2010’s Crackdown Foretold Iran’s Collapse
Flipping through the news archives of March 2010 feels like reading a script for a tragedy that has now reached its bloody climax. Sixteen years ago the headlines were dominated by the arrest of at least six human rights advocates. The regime was trying to sanitize the streets before the Iranian New Year in hopes that the holidays would kill the momentum of dissent. Today amidst full scale urban warfare and the total collapse of state control in Iran those events seem like a sinister prelude to our current chaos.
The regime’s tactics back then resembled a cynical game of musical chairs. Akbar Atri, a former student leader, correctly diagnosed the situation at the time. He noted that authorities were forced to release prisoners on massive bail amounts simply to free up bunk space for fresh detainees. The prison system was already bursting at the seams. The state could not cope with the sheer volume of dissent and tried to solve a problem it created with mass arrests. In 2026 that pressure cooker finally exploded and prisons ceased to be a deterrent altogether.
The pressure on the opposition leadership tells a chilling story of escalation. Fatimeh Karroubi, the wife of opposition figure Mehdi Karroubi, wrote open letters about pro government mobs besieging their home. They pelted windows with eggs and tomatoes while chanting slogans. In 2010 this felt like the height of lawlessness. From the vantage point of 2026 these attacks look almost innocent. Yet that very impunity for state sponsored thugs laid the groundwork for today’s death squads who have swapped tomatoes for live ammunition.
The regime’s paranoia was evident in its war on culture. Authorities panicked over the Feast of Fire and declared the ancient Zoroastrian tradition un Islamic. Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi threatened severe punishment for anyone hitting the streets and labeled celebration as a threat to national security. That fear of a public gathering transforming into a revolt has metastasized over a decade and a half. The government’s war on its own people’s traditions has now morphed into a literal war against the people themselves.
Perhaps the darkest echo is the story of 20 year old student Mohammad Amin Valian. In 2010 he faced a death sentence for “waging war against God” merely for throwing rocks during protests. Rights groups called it barbarism. Today as the death toll mounts in the thousands and summary executions are commonplace Valian’s fate stands as an ignored warning. The stones in the hands of students have been replaced by weapons and targeted repression has spiraled into a national tragedy.