Die iranische Generation Z hat dazu beigetragen, die Proteste voranzutreiben. Sie haben mit ihrem Leben bezahlt.

Sam, who had just turned 17, is one of an expanding list of teenagers and other young people emerging as victims of the brutal crackdown on protests in Iran, a country where almost half of the population is under 30. Among the dead were athletes, artists and students whose photographs and brief biographies have since flooded social media, creating a digital memorial of young lives snuffed out under an internet blockade.

Ranks of youth often form the front lines of mass protests—from China’s 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations to the Arab Spring uprisings of the early 2010s, to Myanmar’s youth rebellion against a military coup in 2021. The Gen Z protest movement that has rolled around the globe in recent years has felled governments in places as far apart as Bangladesh and Bulgaria.

The demonstrations in Iran took on a different tenor, initially spearheaded by conservative bazaar workers disgruntled at the collapse in Iran’s currency. The regime acknowledged their concerns and promised to make economic concessions. But when young people joined in, the protests morphed into an antiregime uprising that presented the greatest challenge to the country’s Shiite cleric rulers in their almost five decades in power. The crackdown was swift and decisive.