‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadi’. Girl, life, freedom. This slogan grew to become the refrain of the motion that was unleashed after the dying of Mahsa Amini in 2022. Ali, the 22-year-old, died in custody after defying the strict Islamic costume code and was imprisoned by the Shia nation’s ethical police.
Her dying sparked a broader protest towards the theocratic regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme chief. On the second anniversary of her dying, echoes of the slogan “ladies, life and freedom” can nonetheless be heard, as Mahsa Amini’s mother and father have been banned from holding an annual gathering in reminiscence of their daughter. Her mother and father are below home arrest. Even the Aichi cemetery within the city of Saqqez, the place Amini was buried, has been blocked off. The city has stepped up its safety, Medya Information, a Kurdish media outlet, reported.
Regardless of all of the precautionary measures to keep away from outrage, many ladies remembered Mehsa. A number of Iranian ladies took to the streets of Tehran with their hair free, even after sundown, in a gesture of defiance, in reminiscence of Ali, and the remainder of the huge revolutionary protests in Iran shook that authority of the Ayatollah.
Ladies stroll by means of the streets of Tehran with out hijab
Within the northern suburbs of Tehran, the place the rich populations stay, and within the working-class areas of southern Tehran, ladies are seen with out hijab. In the primary parks of the town, ladies are seen with their heads uncovered through the day and even after the solar comes up.
Many movies are circulating wherein excursions of metropolis streets are recorded for folks dwelling in rural areas or outdoors Iran. Within the movies from the bustling and bustling cities, ladies with out hijab are additionally seen.
This may have shocked anybody after the 1979 Islamic Revolution bolstered Islamic social values for ladies, however it’s now commonplace following the ladies’s freedom of life motion.
“My quasi-courage in not carrying headscarves is a legacy of Mahsa Amini, and we have now to guard this as an achievement,” a 25-year-old scholar at Tehran’s Sharif College, who gave solely her first title, Azadeh, advised The Related Press.
“She may very well be my age now if she hadn’t handed away,” he added.
Feminine prisoners on starvation strike in Iran
Many ladies in Tehran’s Evin jail have additionally began a starvation strike on the second anniversary of Amini’s dying and the Ladies, Life and Freedom motion, based on a report by Iran Wire.
These 34 prisoners intention to “be a part of the Iranian folks protesting towards the federal government’s repressive insurance policies” by means of their starvation strike.
A few of them are distinguished Iranian activists, comparable to Narges Mohammadi, Verisheh Moradi, Mahbobeh Rezaei and Parivash Muslimi.
This starvation strike is a part of ongoing protests in Iran, however such disobedience carries dangers.
There are movies of ladies being damage and harassed for not carrying a headband.
The Iranian authorities has additionally focused retailers the place ladies don’t put on hijab. Surveillance cameras are used to search for ladies who don’t put on a veil and impose fines on them.
Aerial drones are even getting used to watch the 2024 Tehran Worldwide E book Truthful and Kish Island for ladies not carrying masks, the UN mentioned.
Whereas the federal government doesn’t acknowledge the rise within the variety of ladies not carrying hijab, there are different indicators of change.
REPRESSION OF POSTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ARRESTED AND WHIPPED
Alef, a girl who posted a photograph on social media along with her hair down, mentioned: “I did not actually care sufficient to cover who I’m or the place the picture was taken.”
“I wished to say: we exist,” he added.
Authorities noticed the picture and Alef was arrested. She was taken to an unknown location the place she was saved in solitary confinement for about two weeks. The guards even reviewed her social media posts and photographs.
“An officer advised me to take off my coat and lie down,” Alef advised the BBC of his arrest.
“He was holding a black leather-based whip and began hitting me throughout my physique. It was very painful, however I didn’t need to present weak point.”
Iranian police shot Arezou Badri, 31, paralysing her after she fled an tried car seizure associated to a headband violation.
A month after Mahsa Amini was killed, a riot police officer shot Kosar Eftekhari, first within the genital space after which within the eye, leaving her blind. The assault, filmed and posted on-line, intensified her surveillance and led to her being condemned for social media posts, together with pictures wherein she was not carrying the hijab. Sentenced to greater than 4 years in jail and banned from digital use, Kosar fled to Germany, the place she now advocates for Iranian ladies and testified earlier than the United Nations Reality-Discovering Mission on Iran about “crimes towards humanity,” whereas Iranian authorities deny attacking the protesters.
WOMEN’S LIFE FREEDOM MOVEMENT IN TEHRAN
This defiance comes even because the United Nations has described “expanded repressive measures and insurance policies” below Iran’s theocratic authorities to punish any protests.
Though Iran’s new reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has promised to finish harassment of ladies by the morality police, final authority in Iran stays within the arms of the 85-year-old supreme chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has up to now declared that “unveiling the veil is forbidden on each spiritual and political grounds.”
In Iran, the hijab has been a spiritual and political image, however following the dying of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, strict guidelines are being relaxed within the nation.
“I feel the present peaceable environment is a part of the scenario that has developed since Pezeshkian took workplace,” Hamid Zarrinjouei, a 38-year-old bookseller, advised the AP information company. “Someway, Pezeshkian may persuade highly effective folks that extra restrictions don’t essentially make ladies extra devoted to the hijab.”
“It is just like the seeds of a flower. Even when a flower withers or dries up, its seeds go on and bloom elsewhere,” Alef tells the BBC in regards to the Ladies, Life and Freedom motion.