Woman, Life, Freedom!’ has become the battle-cry of the country-wide uprising in Iran.
It was sparked by the death of 22 year old Kurdish Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini (her Kurdish name is Jina, the ‘J’ pronounced as it is in French) in police custody.
Mahsa was arrested in Tehran for not wearing her hijab ‘properly’. She was severely beaten, went into a coma, and died.
The Iranian authorities claim she did not die from being beaten, but of a pre-existing heart condition which her family deny she had.
Even if you know nothing about the Iranian Regime or its record on human rights, their attitude to Mahsa’s death and the reason for her treatment, are chilling enough to understand why young Iranians are risking their lives to protest: ‘Yes, we smashed her skull because her fringe was showing, but it was her heart that gave up, and you can’t blame us for that!’
Because beating and abusing women for showing their hair is acceptable and indeed deemed necessary under this regime. In fact there is a special branch of the Iranian police force, known as ‘the morality police’ whose job is to harass and batter women whose hair in visible under their hijab.
In the three weeks since the protests began, more than 185 people have been killed across the country’s 31 provinces according to the Iran Human Rights group.
The Iran I was born in back in 1973 was a very different place to what it is now.
Women could dress as they pleased. If you see photos of Iran in the 70s, the woman wore mini skirts and ultra glamorous hairdos and could wear bikini’s on the beach.
My mother and father swished about at glitzy parties, society looked every bit as free and glamorous as it was for young couples in London, Paris and New York. If you wanted to wear a hijab, you did, if you didn’t want to wear one, you didn’t.
After the revolution of 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini took over and Iran became an Islamic Republic.
Everything changed. The Iranian people lost their freedom of expression. Dancing and singing were banned. These two things are integral to our culture. We dance and sing when we are sober and in public.
At picnics, at restaurants, and, in the case of the package holiday to Majorca I went on with my mum and other Iranian families in 1984, on planes.
I was at an Iranian party in an apartment in Berlin when I was 18. Neighbours complained about the noise. I still have pictures of us dancing with the bemused but game German police officers who arrived to tell us to turn it down.
But now, all joy was banned. Any criticism of the regime was viciously stamped out. Dissent put you in mortal danger. Women were forbidden to wear make up and were forced to wear a hijab. Punishments were brutal if they did not comply.
They were not allowed to sit as judges as they were under the Shah.
Many of us, including my father who was a popular satirist, were targeted as ‘enemies of the regime’ and were ordered to be killed.
My family, along with tens of thousands of others, were exiled.
Much of the outside world does not understand how seismic and devastating a change the Islamic Republic’s regime forced on the Iranian people.
You cannot imagine how different our culture is to the ultra-conservatism of the regime.
Iranian people are a diverse bunch, we are deeply connected with our history. We have great pride in ancient Persia being the land many of the literary and mathematical greats.
We are a mish mash of many different races and religions which makes us culturally very open-minded.
Suddenly, there was only one way to live in Iran, the regime’s way, a regime which silences its population, oppresses women and executes homosexuals.
Young people have had enough. Their culture and values are a million miles away from the mullahs who oppress them.
Once the protests spread and gained strength, the regime shut down the internet, shut down phone lines so the outside world would not see what they are doing to protestors.
I have family in Iran. My cousin in Amol stayed up all night and repeatedly tried to connect to my phone. In the few minutes she was able to get a signal, she sent me several frantic voice messages.
“They said they’d shoot below the knee but they are shooting them in their heads,” said one message. “I know one boy was shot three times in his head and died and a girl bled to death when she was refused entry to two hospitals ” read another.
More messages came as she got snippets of connection. “They are so young, young girls and boys. Some look only 14 or 15.”
Despite the internet being blocked by the regime who do not want the outside world to know what they are doing to the protesters, we saw images of students at Sharif University.
When they protested, they were shut in, shot at, tear gassed and scores were killed.
We have seen the video of an adorable 16 year old girl, giggling her way through a karaoke song with her friends. Her name was Nika Shakrami. She disappeared when out protesting.
Her body was found eight days later in an alleyway.
Her mother, Nasrin Shakrami was put under pressure by the regime to say her daughter had killed herself, but she said a forensic report confirmed her child was killed by ‘repeated blunt force trauma to her head’.
These horrors are not cowing the protestors. They continue, in schools, universities and on the streets.
They need help. We need the focus of the international community. Please, do not to write Iran off as ‘just another troubled land’.
Brave young Iranian men are protesting alongside women and girls to fight for the most basic freedom, the right to wear your hair how you like without being imprisoned, battered or killed.
But it’s not just about being forced to wear the hijab of course. The crowds chants of ‘Death to Dictatorship’ are protesting against theocracy.
We need people from around the world to show solidarity with Iranians who just want to live freely once more.
The brave Iranian youths need the freedom loving people of the world to unite with them, for Women, Life, Freedom.
