The government of Iran announced over the weekend that it would take legal action against the United States for U.S. officials’ support of the ongoing protest movement—a level of support that Tehran characterized as “direct involvement,” planning, and organization.

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported on Saturday that the country’s Justice Department had been “tasked to file a lawsuit in order to investigate the damages and meddling inflicted by the [United States’] direct involvement in the unrest.” It also reported that similar claims had been made against BBC Persian and Iran International, two Persian-language satellite television networks based in London that have covered the protests in a positive light. The statement warned that the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia, which is thought to fund Iran International, would “not be ignored by the Islamic Republic’s judiciary system” for providing support to the two networks.

It is not clear how Iran would sue the United States. Although legal proceedings between countries are typically conducted through the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ court system, the United States has refused to recognize the court’s jurisdiction in the past and could veto the enforcement of a verdict in the UN Security Council. A previous Iranian effort to sue Washington over its involvement in overthrowing former Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 similarly amounted to nothing.

The anti-government protest movement—sparked after the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a twenty-two-year-old Kurdish woman arrested for failing to wear a headscarf properly—has since spread to most of Iran’s major cities, prompting severe political and economic disruption. Alongside street demonstrations, many businesses across the country have closed, and several cities have experienced strikes, although an organized nationwide “general strike” has not occurred. The strikes have primarily been concentrated in Iran’s northwestern Kurdistan province, Amini’s home, although they have spread to other cities including, Tehran and Tabriz.

Although Iran has experienced recurring waves of protest since 2017, the current round of demonstrations is the country’s largest since 2009, and both protesters and government officials have framed the movement as an effort to overthrow Iran’s clerical system of government. Consequently, Iran’s government has launched a harsh crackdown against the demonstrators, killing at least 215 people and arresting thousands. Government officials have also instituted an internet blackout, hampering demonstrators’ ability to communicate and share information with the outside world.

President Joe Biden has vocally supported the protests, condemning the Iranian government for its crackdown and imposing additional U.S. sanctions on several high-ranking Iranian officials. 

Trevor Filseth is a current and foreign affairs writer for the National Interest.

Image: Reuters.