Hell hath no fury: a look inside Iran’s protests

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. Today from London, I'm your host Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. The man nicknamed Vladimir Putin's chef has been doing a lot more than cooking. Yevgeny Prigozhin has stepped out of the shadows, admitting to being the leader of the notorious gang of mercenaries called the Wagner Group. We ask why he's piped up and it would seem that workers just aren't taking their sick days. In the work from home world that so many inhabit, policies from above and attitudes from below lead to people just beavering away from the place once referred to as their sickbed. First up though, Evan Prison in Iran's capital Tehran has a well earned reputation. If you're a dissident, a political pariah, a rabble rouser, Evan is where you go and where you can expect the conditions to be harsh. That's why so many took notice when a fire broke out in the prison on Sunday. Unrest has been spreading across Iran and it was hard to imagine the blaze wasn't connected somehow. Gunshots and anti government chants could be heard. Prisoners, families gathered alongside protesters outside. What exactly was happening inside is hard to know. But to get some sense of it, we spoke to Hossein Darakhshan who spent time in the prison for his role as Iran's so called blog father, the first to bring dissent into the online space.

I spent six years in Evian as a political prisoner from 2008 to 2014. Towards the end of my term, I was transferred to Ward 8, where the recent fires have happened. I could imagine myself being back to the cell that I spent eight months in solitary in 2008. And I could imagine hearing shootings and screams and the traffic and neighbors to the prison screaming and shouting slogans and all that. And at the same time smelling a very thick smoke and hearing shootings and explosions. The smoke would come up. It would be awful if you were stuck there and you couldn't open the windows. I could imagine myself thinking, maybe people have come to save us and to rescue us. Because this was actually a feeling I experienced a few times at that time. Although I also imagine fearful scenarios as well. Because you don't know. Although when you're in solitary, you tend to think more positively than negatively. That's how you survive without hope. You would die in solitary.

Our Middle east correspondent Nicholas Pelham has been speaking to people involved in the country's wider protests, finding a mood that truly could threaten the country's hardliner leadership.

In Tehran, Every evening at 10pm, a young university student opens the window of her fifth floor flat and starts yelling. She chants women, Life, freedom. And she's joined by neighbors in the refrain. These chants spread between buildings and through Iran's capital city over the heads of the security forces below. Nearly all are women's voices. They chant from balconies, from open windows.

We're using a face mask even at home to avoid detections, so they can't film who's shouting from their balconies at night.

That's Marvash. It's not her real name. She's been sending me voice notes in Farsi explaining what's going on. And to protect her identity, we've revoiced her words, which we've translated.

It's quieter outside, but full of police. I spoke to one of my lecturers and he said they're arresting more students every day.

She fears the police who walk menacingly beneath the balconies and windows of the estate where she lives. But that just doesn't stop her.

From the first day until tonight, I've been protesting. Either I was on the streets or I was crying out from the window of my house, shouting in protest with my neighbors.

Unfair women have been clubbed in the head by police when they walk on the streets. And as more headscarves come off. The police have resorted to tasers and water cannon, tear gas and sometimes air rifles or pellet guns. But that's only brought out the men to defend the women. This is an Iranian musician. His name's Shafin Hajipur. He's come fresh out of college. He wrote a song which has just become the soundtrack to the protest. It's become the theme that you're hearing. It's called barai. It means four. Each line is taken from messages which have been posted online, which describe the hopes and fears of the protesters. One of them says, for my sister. Your sister are sisters. Another is for women. Life, freedom. Mr. Hachipur was reportedly arrested shortly after releasing this song. And the prisons are now so full that warehouses are being used as detention centers. And passersby report hearing screams coming out of them. The protests erupted last month. They came in response to the death of a 22 year old woman. Her name was Mahsaramini. And as she was coming out of the metro she was met by the morality police and, and taken aside for showing too much hair. They hauled her into one of their white vans and they took her off to a detention center, supposedly for re education. And it's there that most people believe that she was beaten to death in their custody. Protests erupted initially in her hometown in Kurdistan during the funeral. And they spread really rapidly to major cities and then pretty much across the country. And they were astonishingly led by women. It was women in the front line. It was women who were calling out. It was women who were standing up to the security forces who were chanting that song bari in their faces and waiting to be clubbed in turn. This one death has just become a focal point for dissent. In an effort to revisit, regain full control, the Aard Tollers have reinforced the police with units of their paramilitaries who are ideologues known as the Basij. And yet Mahvash and many brave young women are continuing their protests.

Last night I was on the streets chanting. There were about a hundred of us. Then a besieged soldier who was with the police threatened me with a gun and started yelling at me. He kicked me in the side, the bastard. And I fell down. I want freedom, I said, almost crying. After that, almost everyone ran away and we got separated.

In recent years, most of the protests have been about economic issues, about rising prices and falling incomes. And I think what's significant about these is that this is really a protest about social control. Standing up and saying to the authorities, we've had enough we don't want you running our private lives. We don't want you telling us we what to do. And we just want a release from your social controls. And they're being led by women. I can't remember a time when women were so much at the forefront of determining the future of their societies. In the Middle east, as we're now seeing, The crackdowns have had an effect in as much as we're not seeing masses of people congregate in city squares, but we're seeing lots of smaller protests which are erupting in many places across the major cities. I think if they have a purpose, the strategy is to try and exhaust the security forces. They can't be everywhere all the time. And what initially was seen as a great weakness is becoming a source of strength because as yet, there isn't a clear leadership behind these protests. But that also makes it really hard to detain the leadership and to silence it. And we're also seeing many young Iranians, predominantly women, come out in schools and college campuses. And these have really become the hives of dissent. Some estimate that the average age of the protesters is as young as 15. And there have been human rights groups. One of them in Norway stated that 23 out of the 200 plus protesters who've been killed are children. And that rising death toll is having an impact. Fear is increasingly puncturing the initial euphoria.

My fear feels like it's become some sort of obsessive compulsive disorder. I was crying and so stressed I was too scared to call anyone.

And yet, despite this, my flash and others persevere.

I know this road isn't easy or short, but I hope for change.

There was one particularly vivid incident that Mavash told me about. There were demonstrations taking place just underneath her balcony. She was hearing shots being fired. She saw people falling in the streets below.

It was terrifying. People were shot and falling down. We watched it all from the balcony and we were yelling, begging the police to stop firing. My friend Sara managed to film some of the scenes on her phone. She just poked a tip of it out of the door. She recorded for only about 30 seconds, but her boyfriend was worried. He came by that night and made Sara delete the clip. We decided to delete everything from our phones.

And my fashion and her flatmate were right. They did well to delete the phone's data.

The next morning, we were still in our shorts and T shirts. Two men and two women knocked on our door. They pushed their way in and put a finger to their Lips telling us to stay silent. The women wearing chadors and the men wearing masks. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Sara and I started screaming. They just wanted our phones. We were yelling and crying. Don't take our phones. They said, don't make a big deal out of this. If you keep making a fuss, we'll take you as well as your phones.

Well, eventually they did get their phones back, but it's left her deeply shaken. She was telling me just how she carries on, coping with a pervasive fear in any way that she can.

Nobody can find any peace these days. I deal with the stress by eating. I've put on five kilos in a month. Sometimes I try to calm down and get over the stress by smoking and meditating.

And yet it's astonishing in a way. Despite everything, Mahvash still has hope.

I am sure that change will come. Things have never been like this before. The demonstrations in 2018 were economic, about the price of petrol. In 2009, they were political. But this is the first social demonstration. We are a community of protesters.

Of course, Mahrash is just one individual, but her story is mirrored in the testimonies of literally thousands upon thousands of Iranians. I've spoken, spoken to employers who are saying that they're facing mounting pressure from their staff to tweet support for the protesters to tweet in the name of Mahsa Aminid. We're seeing footage from Tehran's two main bazaars where the shutters have come down. And they used to be instrumental in the revolution that overthrew the Shah in 1979. And at the crucial oil and gas plants, workers there have also staged a demonstration. Some have laid down tools and stopped work. It's unclear whether that, as the authorities say, is because of disputes over wages or whether it's in support of the protest. But one thing we do know is that they, too, are also chanting, death to the dictator. If nothing else, what the protests have done is to make every Iranian ask a question about where Iran is heading. Is it heading towards intensification, a consolidation, consolidation of an Islamic republic? Is it going to slough off the diktats of the Sharia? And you're starting to see Iranians both concerned about their future if there is greater unrest, but also saying what could the country look like without the clerics in charge, if businessmen do start to wobble, if cracks start to appear in the armed forces, and if women like Mahavash and her friends do continue to go out on the streets and Protest. The revolt really could enter a new phase.

They have announced more demonstrations for tomorrow, and I'm going to go out on the street. I want to stay alive until I've done my best. The people are fighting for the happiness of the next generation. We fight, we die, we take back Iran.

I. It's no surprise that when Russian forces in Ukraine are mentioned, the name the Wagner group often comes up too. It was the same story in Crimea back in 2014, when the band of mercenaries helped President Vladimir Putin to annex the region. Since then, the name just keeps arising everywhere that Russia has interests. Mali in West Africa, for example. It seems like each time the Wagner group is mentioned in the media, it's with the words shadowy or secretive. But one secret about the group is out.

In September, a video began to circulate.

Maria Vilczek is a news editor at the Economist.

In it, we see a prison where there are dozens of men gathered outside in the courtyard and in the center, there is a bold, imposing man telling them about an offer he's willing to make them. If they come and fight for him in Ukraine and they survive for six months, they will be granted their freedom and paid. However, if they desert, they will be executed. That man is Yevgeny Prigozhin, and in a statement which appeared on social media in September for the first time, he admitted that he is the founder of the Wagner group of mercenaries.

So who is this guy, Mr. Prigozhin? Tell me about his background.

He's known to be a close ally of Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, but actually, we know very little about his childhood. He spent most of his 20s in prison, where he served nine years for robbery, fraud and involving teenagers and crime. And after he was released in the 1990s, that was just as the Soviet Union had collapsed and the first decade of wild capitalism had ushered into Russia. Mr. Prigozhin had set up a hot dog stand in St. Petersburg. It turned out to be a success, and from there he expanded his empire into chic eateries. One of them, which was called New island, was set on a boat and that cruised along the Neva River. It passed colorful palaces, and it was one of the favorites. And of Vladimir Putin, who was also a native of St. Petersburg and a deputy mayor of the city. And that's how Mr. Prigozhin's good relations with Russia's elite started. It bought him many lucrative catering contracts, some of them for schools, hospitals and the army. And his catering company, called Concord, also helped run lavish state banquets for Mr. Putin but actually, it was his operations outside of the kitchen that cemented his nickname, Putin's Chef. These included the Internet's research agency. That was an organization which a grand jury in America concluded was a troll farm that was used to meddle in the 2016 presidential election. And of course, there's the Wagner group, which, as he has now admitted, he founded in 2014.

It's not the first time that we've heard the name the Wagner group on the show here, but not heard the background. What's the story?

So Mr. Prigozhin Co founded the group with Dmitry Utkin, who's a former Russian soldier known to have multiple Nazi tattoos. And that's also related to the group's name, which is reportedly after Hitler's favorite composer. Mr. Prigozhin likes to brag how in the organization's early days, he cleaned the old weapons and sorted out the bulletproof vests himself. But since then, it's grown massively. It became important as the first and largest state linked business of private military contractors operating in Ukraine. There, they bolstered the ranks of Russian unmarked soldiers who annexed Crimea in 2014 and stayed to the support pro Russian separatists in the Eastern Donbas region. But since then, it's also appeared in a number of places around the world where Russia has had an interest, including Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic and Mali. And it became important as the first and largest state linked business of mercenaries. But it also has a reputation for being quite brutal. And everywhere in its wake, journalists have reported torture, killings and rape.

So why is a group like this useful to Vladimir Putin and his regime?

Well, by sending mercenaries rather than his own soldiers, that grants Russia plausible deniability. It also initially helped it make up for the shortages of soldiers on the ground in the early days of the war by plugging the gaps with some of Wagner's men. And one expert I spoke to estimated that at its peak, that provided about 10,000 soldiers in Ukraine. It has also allowed Russia to play down its own casualties in that way. And as Russia now is bringing in new conscripts of questionable quality and morale, Wagner troops may be used to bolster resolve and experience.

So it sounds as if it's a business that has, by design, lived in the shadows. Why are we now, after all these years, finding out about its founder?

So, for many years, Mr. Prigozhin has vehemently denied any involvement in the Wagner group. He has even sued journalists for suggesting that he has had links to the group. But he is believed to have made a handsome Profit from oil fields that his troops have seized in Syria, as well as diamond mines in the Central African Republic. So why is he now deciding to put his name to it and take credit for it, as it were? Well, one reason is that because of Russia's tattered relationship with the west, there's no longer a point in maintaining the open secret. Mr. Prigozhin has sanctions imposed on him, and there is little chance of those being lifted in the near future. But also for him, it's a way to remind the Kremlin of his value. In the past that has led to lucrative state contracts.

You say that he's sort of flagging his value to the Kremlin. But isn't a large part of his value to the Kremlin the shadowy nature of his work, his group, his identity?

Yes, precisely. So he grants the Kremlin some plausible deniability. And that makes him strongest when operating on the fringes of politics. One of his key advantages is that, as one expert told me, he can break the rules when the Kremlin needs him to. So Mr. Prigozhin is strongest, really, when operating on the fringes of politics. And greater scrutiny could make him a liability to the Kremlin. So for the time being, I can't imagine any side pushing to give him more of a political role.

Maria, thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you, Jason.

Not everyone is quick to take a sick day when they need one. This isn't just a pandemic effect. The last time I called in sick, I was doing so from a hospital bed about four years ago. It isn't just about being a workaholic either. It's just that, well, work can be done from home or from bed, so long as the camera stays off and the WI fi stays strong.

The work from home revolution has raised the bar for being sick. At the height of the pandemic, people had Covid and they kept powering through, although they had high fever, even shortness of breath.

Fanny Papagogio edits Money Talks, the economist's newsletter about finance and economics.

Nicholas Bloom at Stanford University has been tracking working from Home habits since before the pandemic. What he found is that sick days fell by 12% for employees that work remotely, at least some of the time by running an experiment on a Chinese conglomerate.

So people weren't taking their sick days during the pandemic, even. And that has proceeded and continued after the pandemic. Do we know why that is?

So I'll give you a personal anecdote. When I was ill With COVID in June. Immediately I told my managers and they said, you should rest. But of course I didn't rest. That was unthinkable. I just kept firing off emails and doing my job. And then I moved into bed with all my equipment until I felt so bad that I couldn't sit up. And then I said to my employers that I really had to sign off. So many people we see that they keep working until they feel incapacitated to continue. There's also the current economic climate that creates a lot of uncertainty. Inflation has been crippling economies across the world, and there is insecurity about a looming recession. So people are really determined to hang on to their jobs. And many times because they work remotely, they're afraid that they might not be taken seriously if they say that they're unwell and want to take the day off. So that influenced the judgment, and instead they keep on working.

And that remote work question undermines the usual argument for calling in sick, which used to be about protecting your colleagues from whatever you've got.

Because boundaries have collapsed. This is not always a straightforward situation. Many companies have yet to update their sick leave policies in this new era. But working while unwell can carry some serious risks. Being sick, we know that can impair brain function almost as much as consuming alcohol. There's brain fog, and sometimes this is compared to altitude sickness, where judgment is impaired. And it isn't just Covid who has the symptom of brain fog. Any virus will bring fatigue and depletion. Employers have to make sure that employees are in good health and they do not push themselves to their outer limits. And also one has to make a true call about whether he or she is too sick to work.

So what should employers be doing to keep everybody's interests in mind?

Well, in this new era, managers can lead by example. And if they feel unwell and have a cold, they should take the day off and let their teams know that this is what they're doing. And that also builds trust in colleagues. And they know that it is okay to take a sick day off if one is unwell. This is also an opportunity to delegate tasks. So there's a silver lining.

And you referred to this new era. It is here to stay. This is a problem that somehow everyone's going to have to solve.

Yes, being sick is part of the human condition, and we have to find mechanisms to adapt. In the working from home era, you do not have to have a triple bypass to take the day off. Feeling unwell, having a virus, being easy, depleted having a high temperature. These are reasons enough.

Funny. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, Jason.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. Let us know what you think of the show. Drop us a line@podcastseconomist.com or leave us a rating wherever you listen. We'll see you back here tomorrow.