Generations of women have been fighting the Iranian Regime, they hope this revolution will be their last

Photo credit: Taymaz Valley

CW: death, suicide

Iran’s national political landscape and history is not well taught. In recent months however, few people have been able to avoid hearing about my country.

Back in 1936 when the Reza Shah still ruled (the Iranian Monarch), hijabs and other forms of Muslims modesty were outlawed in kashf-i hijab. The period of the Shah monarchy in Iran is controversial. With a focus on economy and modernisation, more women than ever were in further education, the workforce and taking up high positions of authority. With this as a distraction, the monarchy censored independent press, political parties and NGO’s. An outright Nazi sympathiser fascinated with Europeanising the country, Reza Shah’s crack down on orthodoxy and religion in general is seen by historians and Iranians alike as one of the causes of the Iranian revolution in 1978, allowing extremism to seep in after decades of violent suppression. In 1983, the mandatory hijab was made law, something that still stands. A far distance from the original cries during revolution for freedom and liberation, Muslim women have been fighting it since conception.

Since mid-September we’ve seen a reprise in protest against the mandatory hijab but this time, over social media. Posts showing schoolgirls burning their mandatory scarves, brandishing scissors, and performing impromptu haircuts in public, while chanting jin, jiyan, azadî (woman, life, freedom). This wave of organised unrest is in retaliation to the alleged state murder of Jîna Amini (frequently reported under her Persian name Mahsa Amini, Kurdish names are outlawed in Iran), a 22 year old Kurdish-Iranian woman.

The cause of Jîna’s death is still to be confirmed, all that we do know is on the 13th of September 2022 she was arrested by morality police for wearing a ‘loose fitting hijab’ and taken to a re-education centre for a briefing. Two and a half hours later she was admitted to Karsa hospital (a district hospital in Iran), and reported to be brain dead.

On the 16th Jîna was declared dead.

After this announcement protests quickly broke out, since there have been countless casualties and fatalities (according to the Iranian Human Rights organisation, 154 reported and known deaths directly linked to local protests. There is contestation over this figure and it has likely risen). Few protester’s stories are known, but some reached levels of infamy after getting published on Twitter. It exemplifies how far the regime will go to silence criticism, but it also reveals the stark difference in treatment depending on gender, class, and ethnicity.

Sarina Esmailzadeh, 16, was killed by police whilst protesting in Karaj. Upon identifying her body her mother committed suicide.

16 year old, Nika Shakarami, went missing on the 20th of September after attending a protest of the death of Jîna Amini – her family identified her body by image 10 days later, but were unable to see her in person. She was buried against her family’s wishes at Hayat Ol Gheyb, namely because Iranian authorities believed a funeral procession in Lorestan (where the family plot was) would cause further protests.

Shervin Hajipour, a 25 year old famous Iranian singer and songwriter who found fame on New Era (a show similar to Britain’s got Talent) was arrested on the 29th of September after publishing his protest song Baraye, described as the anthem of the Jîna Amini protests. He was forced to remove the video and song from his Instagram, but it had already gone viral and was quickly shared onto other platforms.

Iran’s complex relationship with feminism and authoritarianism puts the heat on young girls and mothers. Frequently under-reported, Muslim teen girls and Kurdish women are the ones who have been showing up and organising direct action under threat of violence, alienation or death for years. The difference is this generation of women are the first to utilise the likes of Telegram, Twitter and VPNs that are much harder to block when protests break out.

The success of campaigns like #mystealthyfreedom,  #mycameraismyweapon, #whitewednesday should not be overlooked – Iranian and Kurdish women have been fighting for years.

In this revolution, the protester’s demands are clearly advertised: dissolution of the Islamic Republic of Iran and abolishment of enforced modesty ultimately giving women the ability of choice. There has never been this abundance of anti-regime marches, protests, letters and petition writing campaigns organised on the ground and internationally. It shows a clear rise in public attention.

But why is the global North only paying attention to them now? There are multiple answers to that. The regime is as cruel as it’s ever been and it’s only going to get worse. Information about regimes and oppression is the most accessible it’s ever been, with breaking stories available at the click of a finger - stories of exploit can rarely be buried as quickly as before.

With generations of anti-imperialist scholars and educators, Iranian and Kurdish feminism sits at the intersection of rejecting white feminism and neoliberalism - change must happen now and importantly no one can be left behind. This message could be widely seen as ‘revolutionary’ to the West, where we still argue about which fascist political president or prime minister is slightly more fascist than the other.

We are hopeful for a message and drive for real change without caveats or sway, for anybody listening.

My last impression as to why the West is listening now is: Iran has faced years of trading and exporting sanctions from the West meaning there's little to no reliance on its natural resources – now with no ulterior motive, clear moral objections can be made.

If Hijabi girls are the ones removing their school’s portraits of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, painting their left hand red whilst burning a mandatory scarf in their right, throwing water bottles at Iranian officials till they have to flee - surely that tells us that this is yet another fight for women’s autonomy against a government that doesn’t allow it. That is the reporting which needs to continue, because it doesn’t fit with the narrative the regime needs to survive.

The fight for autonomy has cursed generations of women in Iran, but most recent calls for revolution may see an end to this cycle. It leaves us with the ever-long question, when will Iranian women finally have the rights they deserve?