Nobel Laureate Ebadi Says Iran’s ‘Revolutionary Process’ Is Irreversible

A file picture obtained by AFP outside Iran shows a bin burning in the middle of an intersection during a protest for Mahsa Amini, a woman who reportedly died after being arrested by the country's "morality police", in Tehran on September 20, 2022. (AFP)
A file picture obtained by AFP outside Iran shows a bin burning in the middle of an intersection during a protest for Mahsa Amini, a woman who reportedly died after being arrested by the country's "morality police", in Tehran on September 20, 2022. (AFP)
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Nobel Laureate Ebadi Says Iran’s ‘Revolutionary Process’ Is Irreversible

A file picture obtained by AFP outside Iran shows a bin burning in the middle of an intersection during a protest for Mahsa Amini, a woman who reportedly died after being arrested by the country's "morality police", in Tehran on September 20, 2022. (AFP)
A file picture obtained by AFP outside Iran shows a bin burning in the middle of an intersection during a protest for Mahsa Amini, a woman who reportedly died after being arrested by the country's "morality police", in Tehran on September 20, 2022. (AFP)

Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi said the death in custody of a young Iranian Kurdish woman last year has sparked an irreversible "revolutionary process" that would eventually lead to the collapse of the "Islamic Republic".

Iran's clerical rulers have faced widespread unrest since Mahsa Amini died in the custody of the morality police on Sept. 16 after she was arrested for wearing "inappropriate attire".

Iran has blamed Amini's death on preexisting medical problems and has accused the United States and other foes fomenting the unrest to destabilize the clerical establishment.

As they have done in the past in the face of protests in the past four decades, Iran's hardline rulers have cracked down hard. Authorities have handed down dozens of death sentences to people involved in protests and have carried out at least four hangings, in what rights activists say is aimed at intimidating people and keep them off the streets.

A staunch critic of the clerical establishment that has ruled in Iran since the revolution in 1979, Ebadi has been one of the most outspoken supporters of the anti-government demonstrations.

Like many critics of Iran's clerical rulers, Ebadi believes the current wave of protests has been the boldest challenge to the establishment's legitimacy yet.

"This revolutionary process is like a train that will not stop until it reaches its final destination," said Ebadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her work defending human rights and who has been in exile in London since 2009.

The 1979 revolution toppled Iran's Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a secular monarch allied with the West, and led to the formation of an Islamic Republic.

With the latest protests ushering Iran into an era of deepening crisis between the rulers and society at large, Amini's death has unbottled years of anger among many Iranians over issues ranging from economic misery and discrimination against ethnic minorities to tightening social and political restrictions.

For months, Iranians from all walks of life have called for the fall of the clerical establishment, chanting slogans against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

However, protests have slowed considerably since the hangings began.

Videos shared on social media, unverifiable by Reuters, showed people chanting "Death to Khamenei" from rooftops in some cities, but nothing on the scale of past months.

The rights group HRANA said that as of Wednesday, 527 protesters had been killed during unrest, including 71 minors. It said 70 members of the security forces had also been killed. As many as 19,262 protesters are believed to have been arrested, it said.

Growing anger

Ebadi, speaking in a phone interview from London, said the state's use of deadly violence will deepen anger felt by ordinary Iranians about the clerical establishment because their grievances remain unaddressed.

"The protests have taken a different shape, but they have not ended," Ebadi told Reuters.

With deepening economic misery, chiefly because of US sanctions over Tehran's disputed nuclear work, many Iranians are feeling the pain of galloping inflation and rising joblessness.

Inflation has soared to over 50%, the highest level in decades. Youth unemployment remains high with over 50% of Iranians being pushed below the poverty line, according to reports by Iran's Statistics Centre.

The crackdown has stoked diplomatic tensions at a time when talks to revive Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers are at a standstill. The United States and its Western allies have slapped sanctions on Iranian authorities and entities for their involvement in the crackdown and other human rights abuses.

To force Iran's clerical establishment from power, Ebadi said the West should take "practical steps" such as downgrading its political ties with Iran by recalling its ambassadors from Tehran, and should avoid reaching any agreement with the Islamic Republic, including the nuclear deal.



Trump Tours Texas Flood Sites and Defends Officials amid Mounting Questions About Response

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive at Lackland Air Force Base to board Air Force One and return to Washington after visiting Kerrville, Texas where they met with state and local leaders, first responders and victims of last week's flash flooding on July 11, 2025 in San Antonio, Texas. (Getty Images/AFP)
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive at Lackland Air Force Base to board Air Force One and return to Washington after visiting Kerrville, Texas where they met with state and local leaders, first responders and victims of last week's flash flooding on July 11, 2025 in San Antonio, Texas. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Trump Tours Texas Flood Sites and Defends Officials amid Mounting Questions About Response

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive at Lackland Air Force Base to board Air Force One and return to Washington after visiting Kerrville, Texas where they met with state and local leaders, first responders and victims of last week's flash flooding on July 11, 2025 in San Antonio, Texas. (Getty Images/AFP)
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive at Lackland Air Force Base to board Air Force One and return to Washington after visiting Kerrville, Texas where they met with state and local leaders, first responders and victims of last week's flash flooding on July 11, 2025 in San Antonio, Texas. (Getty Images/AFP)

President Donald Trump on Friday toured the devastation from catastrophic flooding in Texas and lauded state and local officials, even amid mounting criticism that they may have failed to warn residents quickly enough that a deadly wall of water was coming their way.

Trump has repeatedly promised to do away with the Federal Emergency Management Agency as part of his larger pledges to dramatically shrink the size of government, and he's fond of decrying officials in Democrat-run states hit by past natural disasters and tragedy.

But the president struck a far more somber and sympathetic tone while visiting America's largest Republican state, highlighting the heartbreak of what happened while effusively praising elected officials and first responders alike.

"The search for the missing continues. The people that are doing it are unbelievable," Trump, seated with officials around a table with emblazoned with a black-and-white "Texas Strong" banner, said at a makeshift emergency operations center inside an expo hall in Kerrville.

He later added, "You couldn’t get better people, and they’re doing the job like I don’t think anybody else could, frankly."

Since the July 4 disaster, which killed at least 120 people and left more than 170 missing, the president has been conspicuously silent on his past promises to shutter FEMA and return disaster response to the states. Instead, he's focused on the once-in-a-lifetime nature of what occurred in central Texas' Hill Country and its human toll.

"We just visited with incredible families. They’ve been devastated," the president said of a closed-door meeting he and first lady Melania Trump had with the relatives of some of those killed or missing.

Trump’s shift in focus underscores how tragedy can complicate political calculations, even though he has made slashing the federal workforce a centerpiece of his administration’s opening months. He spent a lot of time Friday discussing the victims from Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 people were killed.

"They were there because they loved God. And, as we grieve this unthinkable tragedy, we take comfort in the knowledge that God has welcomed those little beautiful girls into his comforting arms in heaven," Trump said.

The first lady described meeting "beautiful young ladies" from the area who she said gave her a "special bracelet from the camp in honor of all the little girls that lost their lives."

"We are here to honor them," she said, promising to return to support the camp in the future.

Before arriving for his tour, Trump approved Texas’ request to extend the major disaster declaration beyond Kerr County to eight additional counties, making them eligible for direct financial assistance to recover and rebuild.

"All across the country Americans’ hearts are shattered. I had to be here as president," he said. "All the beautiful souls, and we’re filled with grief and devastation. This, the loss of life. And unfortunately, they’re still looking."

Trump also tried to steer away from partisanship, even saying at one point, "I don’t want to say politics" while still bragging about reducing the cost of eggs around the country.

He also still insisted his administration "is doing everything it can to help Texas" and "we’ve got some good people" running FEMA. That is nonetheless a far cry from his call mere weeks ago to begin "phasing out" FEMA.

At the White House, Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, similarly dodged questions Friday about FEMA’s future. He said that the agency has billions of dollars in reserves "to continue to pay for necessary expenses" and that the president has promised Texas, "Anything it needs, it will get."

"We also want FEMA to be reformed," Vought said. "The president is going to continue to be asking tough questions of all of us agencies, no different than any other opportunity to have better government."

On the ground in devastated communities, meanwhile, some state and local officials have faced questions about how well they were prepared and how quickly they acted, including if warning systems might have given more people time to evacuate.

Asked about such concerns during his appearance at the operations center in Kerrville, Trump called a reporter "evil" and said he thought "everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances."

"I admire you, and I consider you heroes," Trump said of the officials around him.

He also praised a long list of Texas Republicans and had especially kind words for Rep. Chip Roy, who represents some of the hardest-hit areas. A staunch conservative, Roy initially opposed Trump’s sweeping tax-cut and spending package but ultimately supported it.

"He’s not easy, but he’s good," Trump said of Roy. The congressman, for his part, bristled at questions about authorities' flood response, calling the question about inadequate flood warnings "ridiculous."

The visit began with Air Force One landing in San Antonio and Trump deplaning in a suit while the first lady wore more casual clothing — though both wore ball caps against the heat. The Trumps then boarded a helicopter to Kerrville and saw the flooding aftermath from the air, before meeting with victims' families and first responders.

Roads in the center of town were shut down, and people lined the streets, some wearing Trump hats and T-shirts and waving American flags. Green ribbons recognizing the lives lost at Camp Mystic were tied around trees, poles and along bridges, and marquees featured slogans such as "Hill Country Strong" and "Thank you first responders."

Trump won Kerr County with 77% of the vote last year.

Harris Currie, a rancher from Utopia, Texas, near Kerrville, said the flood devastation can be fully understood only by seeing it first-hand.

"Pictures do not do it justice," Currie said.

Asked what officials on the ground needed most urgently from federal sources, Kerr County Commissioner Jeff Holt, who also is a volunteer firefighter, stressed the need for repairs to nonworking phone towers and "maybe a little better early warning system."

Trump himself has suggested that a warning system should be established, though few details have been offered on what that might eventually entail.

Friday's visit was far different from the other times the first couple visited natural disaster sites, during Trump's first weekend back in the White House in January. They toured North Carolina to scope out damage from Hurricane Helene and saw the aftermath of wildfires in Los Angeles, and the president sharply criticized the administration of his predecessor, President Joe Biden, and officials from deep-blue California.

"We’ll be helping you from Washington, DC, like no other president would," Trump said Friday. "The state of Texas, No. 1 they do it right and they've done it right for a long time. And it's a very special place to me."