A DShK in the Street: When the Government Sees the People as the Enemy
S. Rouzbeh
۲۰۲۶/۰۷/۰۲

The sight of a heavy machine gun in Iranian streets signals the transfer of battlefield logic into the city. The author argues that this reflects a government’s fear, not strength, and calls for solidarity, documentation and organised resistance to repression.

Where in the world, in the twenty-first century, does a government bring battlefield weapons into the streets to confront defenceless people?

Which government, if it still considers itself a government and the people its citizens, mounts a heavy machine gun on a pickup or military vehicle and turns the city into a military confrontation zone?

When a DShK is seen in the streets of a country, facing protesters, can we still speak of “crowd control”? Or must we accept that the government sees its own people not as citizens, but as an internal enemy?

The images that emerged, eyewitness accounts and reports from some Iranian cities during the bloody days of Dey 1404 were shocking to many Iranians. People had already seen, in Aban 98, the uprising of 1401, and dozens of labour and civil protests, that the Islamic Republic’s response to protest is batons, prison, bullets, internet shutdowns and executions. But the presence of a weapon such as a DShK in an urban setting revealed a new level of repression.

A DShK is not a tool of the police or of urban order. This heavy military machine gun, with a calibre of 12.7 millimetres, was designed for the battlefield: a weapon used in bloody conflicts from the Second World War to Afghanistan, the Iran–Iraq War, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Ukraine. [5] Such a weapon was not made to arrest people, control crowds or drive protesters back; it was designed to destroy targets, provide fire support and engage light vehicles and military positions.

When such a weapon appears in the street, the issue is not merely the use of an instrument of repression; it is the transfer of the logic of war into the city. The government is effectively declaring that it has turned the civic sphere into a battlefield and sees protesters not as citizens, but as targets.

The significance of this goes beyond the DShK’s destructive power, though that alone is enough to pain the conscience of anyone who loves freedom. A weapon of this kind fires bullets that are devastating to the human body and can cause irreversible injuries. Using it against defenceless people is a sign of the moral and political collapse of a government that no longer recognises any boundary between security and revenge.

Under established international standards, the use of force must be necessary, limited and proportionate, and firearms may be used only in exceptional circumstances, to prevent an immediate threat of death or serious injury. So we must ask: how is a DShK in Iran’s streets compatible with the principles of necessity and proportionality? Which unarmed protester posed such a threat that, rather than answer for its actions, the government chose the language of a heavy machine gun?

The answer is clear: the problem is not the danger posed by the people; it is the government’s fear.

The Islamic Republic fears people who no longer believe the official narrative; young people who have abandoned the repeated promises; women who have challenged the government’s ideological order; and citizens who are crying out the truth in every corner of the country. A government with legitimacy has no need for a DShK in the street. Legitimacy comes from votes, trust, the rule of law and accountability; but a government that has lost this capital tries to replace it with fear.

For this reason, the escalation of repressive force is a sign of terror far more than of strength. History has shown time and again that naked violence may silence the streets temporarily, but it cannot erase collective memory. A bullet may cut off a voice, but it cannot kill the story, and repression cannot restore legitimacy.

The days of 18 and 19 Dey 1404 were not merely a few bloody days; they signalled the dominance of military logic in the government’s response to protests. Human rights reports and eyewitness accounts from cities such as Isfahan and Sari indicate that, alongside the use of violence, internet shutdowns were also part of the same pattern of repression: first the street was turned into a firing ground, then the channels for telling the story were closed so that the world would learn the truth later.

For years, the Islamic Republic has tried to reduce protest to “rioting” and the protesting citizen to an “agent of the enemy”. But the presence of a DShK in the street strips away many of these masks. A government that brings a weapon of war to bear on the city can hardly present itself as the guardian of security, because security means protecting people’s lives, not targeting them.

In such circumstances, speaking of organisation, documentation, solidarity and protecting people’s lives is not adventurism; it is a response to a bitter reality. When peaceful avenues are closed, society is forced to create new networks and capacities for survival and resistance. From this perspective, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi’s remarks about the Immortal Guard and the need to weaken the machinery of repression must be seen in the context of this very reality: a regime that does not understand the language of protest is driving society towards broader organisation.

This does not mean glorifying violence; it means understanding the danger. A society without networks, memory, media, documentation and solidarity will be more vulnerable to the machinery of repression. So “not remaining empty-handed” means, first and foremost, refusing to surrender to fear: recording the truth, conveying the victims’ voices, connecting people inside and outside the country, and turning scattered anger into an organised national force.

But the regime is not afraid only of the streets; it is afraid of what lies within its own ranks, too. Divisions in the centres of power, the succession crisis, economic exhaustion and distrust within the governing structure have turned the Islamic Republic into a nervous and unstable system. Heavy weapons in the street are not just a message to the people; they are also a message to those within the power structure: we still have the ability to repress.

But this is usually the last language spoken by governments that have nothing left to say.

The fate of governments that turn their cities into battlefields against their own people is clear. They may be able to conceal the truth for a time through internet shutdowns, intimidation, arrests and distortion of the narrative, but they cannot silence a nation’s memory for ever.

A DShK in the streets of Iran is not merely a horrifying image; it is evidence of a profound rupture between the government and the people. A government that has to bring battlefield weapons into the city to survive is, in effect, admitting that it has lost its place in the hearts of a large part of society.

And this is the beginning of the end.

For governments begin to fall when people realise that bullets are a sign not so much of power as of fear on the part of the government.

The Islamic Republic fears people who no longer retreat; families who continue to demand justice, and a society that may seem silent today, but has not lost its memory or its resolve.

A DShK can be brought into the street, the internet can be cut off and the voices of mourners can be restricted; but people who have seen the truth cannot be returned to silence and fear for ever.

This time, it is not just a matter of a protest; it is a rupture between a nation and a government that treats its own people as enemies.

And a government that considers its own nation its enemy will sooner or later be defeated by that very nation.

Source: https://srouzbeh.com/en/posts/archive-fc07971b-251b-b712-1c4c-d0844038da78
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