Iranian protesters need solidarity. They’re being sabotaged instead.

[Sid Shniad]

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The Globe and Mail                                                                                                          January 6, 2026

Iranian protesters need solidarity. They’re 

being sabotaged instead

Samira Mohyeddin Special to The Globe and Mail

A pre-1979 Islamic Revolution Iranian flag is waved during a demonstration in Paris against the Iranian regime's crackdown on protests, on Jan. 4, 2026. BLANCA CRUZ/AFP/Getty Images

Samira Mohyeddin is a Toronto-based journalist.

Iranians have taken to the streets again, calling out corruption, economic collapse, repression and a political system that has lost any meaningful claim to represent them. What began as economic outrage over skyrocketing prices and a collapsing currency has once more become a national reckoning, with protests taking place in dozens of cities.

It’s a moment that, like so many demonstrations before it, is rooted in genuine, deeply felt grievances. But as Iranians’ voices grow louder, so do external narratives about who is involved with this movement and where it is going.

In recent days, numerous foreign officials have publicly encouraged protesters and voiced their support for them. Sitting at her desk with a “Make Iran Great Again” hat on it, Israeli science and technology minister Gila Gamliel posted a video on X telling Iranian demonstrators they have “no better friend than Israel.” Former prime minister Naftali Bennett took to Facebook with his own video talking about all the messages he’s received from inside Iran, and encouraging Iranians to rise up and continue writing to him. However, Israel is not a neutral supporter of Iranian freedom; it is a regional power engaged in open hostilities with the country. Its political statements, however rhetorically uplifting, are inseparable from that context. For many Iranians, especially those wary of the prospect of another war and foreign intervention, Israel’s backing doesn’t read as moral support – it reads as instrumentalization.

Outside endorsement from a foreign government, especially one engaged in armed conflict with Iran, feeds Tehran’s most powerful propaganda line: that the protests are a foreign-backed plot engineered to destabilize the country. Over the years, Iran’s leaders have repeatedly painted dissenting voices as agents of hostile powers, rather than acknowledging the legitimate frustrations of its citizens. This shifts the battlefield from addressing real issues – poverty, inequality, corruption, human rights abuses – to a fight over national sovereignty and existential threats. The consequence is increased repression, greater risk to protesters, and a weakening of the very voices pushing for reform. On New Year’s Day, former U.S. secretary of state and CIA director Mike Pompeo wrote on X, “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them” – and, by doing so, effectively put a target on every protester’s back. Whether his post was meant as bravado, provocation, or political theatre, his claim – true or not – is profoundly dangerous.

This is not solidarity. It is sabotage.

Such messaging translates into arrests, interrogations, torture and worse. They make it easier to disappear people. They raise the stakes for anyone who dares to show up in the streets, post a video, or share a slogan. In fact, on Jan. 5, the ninth day the protests, Iranian Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i declared that no mercy will be shown to protesters this time because Israel and the U.S. had directly spoken of their involvement in the protests: “This means the hand of the enemy is clear and obvious; it leaves no room for ambiguity for anyone,” he told a meeting of Iran’s judicial council.

Iranian regime murals are seen in downtown Tehran on Sunday.Vahid Salemi/The Associated Press

Iranians do not need foreign officials speaking for them. They are already speaking; clearly, bravely, and at great personal risk. What Iranians do need from the international community is principled restraint, as well as consistent and continued advocacy for human rights. That means documenting abuses, supporting independent journalism and human-rights organizations, offering sanctuary and protecting refugees fleeing persecution, condemning repression, and holding Iranian officials accountable through international legal mechanisms. It means pressure without grandstanding. It also means understanding when to stay quiet.

When powerful outsiders posture about covert operations or claim proximity to protesters, they aren’t helping a movement, they’re hijacking it. They reduce a popular uprising to a pawn in a game, a talking point, a chance to look tough on Iran. The people paying the price are those on the ground, whose names we may never know.

There is another cost, too: agency. Iranian protesters are not props in someone else’s narrative. They are demanding the right to shape their own future, on their own terms. And rightly so: Iran’s path to freedom must be Iranian.

The world can and should stand with Iranians. But in the end, freedom is not bestowed from above, it is claimed from within: by those who risk everything to declare that they, and only they, will decide their destiny. Iranians deserve that right – to own their struggle, shape their narrative, and determine their path to freedom, on their own terms.