آبان ۹۸

What it was

آبان ۹۸ (âbân-98) refers to the eighth month of the Iranian calendar year 1398, corresponding to roughly 23 October to 21 November 2019. In Iranian political shorthand it names the nationwide protest wave that broke out on 15 November 2019 and was suppressed over the following two weeks. English-language coverage calls it “Bloody November” or the “fuel protests.” It was the worst single mass-suppression event in Iran between the 1979 revolution and the 2022 Mahsa uprising.

What happened

The trigger was a sudden government decree, announced after midnight on 15 November 2019, that tripled the price of subsidized gasoline (a 50-200% hike depending on quota tier) with no public consultation. Protests erupted within hours in Ahvaz, Sirjan, and Behbahan, then spread to over 100 cities. The government cut national internet access on 16 November 2019; the blackout lasted approximately six days and was the most severe internet shutdown ever imposed by a national government to that date. During the blackout, security forces, IRGC ground forces, and Basij units used live ammunition. Reuters published an investigation in December 2019 naming a death toll of 1,500 across cities including Mahshahr (where machine-gun fire was used on protesters trapped in marshlands), Marivan, Karaj, Shahriar, Tehran, and Shiraz. Amnesty International’s lower confirmed figure was 304 named dead. Mass arrests, estimated at 7,000+, followed.

What followed

The Iranian state has never published an official death toll. Internal documents leaked to Reuters traced the kill order to Supreme Leader Khamenei’s late-night meeting with security chiefs on 17 November 2019. No officials have faced accountability. Several detained protesters were later executed in 2020-2021 on محارب charges, including the wrestler Navid Afkari (executed September 2020), whose case became an international cause. The November 2019 events are now considered a structural precedent for the 2022 protests: same playbook, same internet shutdown reflex, same denial of casualties.

How it’s remembered

The 25th of Aban (15 November in the Iranian calendar) is now a memorial date in the diaspora. Families of the dead, organized as the “Justice Seeking Mothers of Iran” (مادران دادخواه ایران), have been the backbone of public memory: gathering at gravesites, releasing photos of children killed, refusing the state’s offers to settle quietly. Inside Iran the Ahvaz and Mahshahr massacres in particular remain raw; protest chants of آبان ادامه دارد (“Aban continues”) returned in 2022.

Cross-links

See dey-96, zan-zendegi-âzâdi, sepâh (IRGC), basij, mohâreb, koshtâr-67.

Sources

• Reuters (23 Dec 2019): “Special Report: Iran’s leader ordered crackdown on unrest” (1,500 toll)
• Amnesty International (Sep 2020): “Iran: Trampling Humanity” (named 304)
• Human Rights Watch (Nov 2020): “One Year On, No Justice for Aban Victims”
• Center for Human Rights in Iran: archived dossier on November 2019
• Access Now / NetBlocks (Nov-Dec 2019): documentation of the six-day internet shutdown

References

• Dehkhoda Lexicon
• Reuters Special Report (Dec 2019)
• Amnesty: Trampling Humanity (Sep 2020)
• HRW one-year report (2020)
• CHRI dossier on Aban 98