Op-Ed: Iranian women are rising up to demand freedom. Are we listening?
In latest days, protests have shaken the streets of Iran in response to the killing of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian Mahsa (Zhina) Amini. Amini died Sept. 16 after being arrested for her “improper hijab” and apparently crushed by Iran’s so-called morality police. 1000’s of Iranians are occupying the streets throughout the nation. Led by ladies, they’re rising up and calling for an finish to the morality police and the methods that uphold it.
Amini’s dying comes amid an intensification of repressive state insurance policies below the Raisi administration which have focused ladies particularly. Final month, authorities introduced they’d aggressively crack down on what they contemplate violations of hijab guidelines (requiring modest gown), from displaying hair to “unhealthy make-up.” And earlier this month the federal government introduced it’ll begin utilizing facial recognition know-how in public areas to implement the gown code towards ladies.
Previously week, demonstrators have been chanting “Girls, life, freedom,” connecting ladies’s rights to broader social and financial insurance policies. Many had been holding indicators saying “dying to the oppressor, whether or not it’s a king or the chief.”
Watching these protests from the USA solely weeks after coming back from visiting household in Iran, I’m deeply moved and impressed by the hundreds of Iranians filling acquainted streets, and I’m horrified by the police brutality they’re being met with in response. As an Iranian American Muslim lady who chooses to put on the hijab, I’m outraged on the means that my id is being exploited by the Iranian state to take care of energy and impose repressive laws on Iranian ladies who select to not put on the hijab.
The Islam I grew up in taught me that religion is a selection. What I see on Iran’s streets at present — necessary hijab being maintained at gunpoint — couldn’t be farther from what the federal government claims to signify. This isn’t about Islam or imposing “morality” however about imposing state energy. The 1979 Revolution started as a cry for freedom from a foreign-backed monarchy, however spiritual slogans and symbols had been shortly co-opted to construct and keep one other repressive state. The protesters are actually demanding that the unique guarantees of the revolution — freedom, independence, social justice — be fulfilled.
At present’s protests echo the a long time of resistance led by ladies, each veiled and unveiled, towards the hijab’s co-optation as a software of repression since its imposition within the Eighties. This wrestle is interlinked with related struggles for girls’s liberation globally.
Whether or not combating for the best to regulate our reproductive lives in the USA, the best to life with out army occupation in Palestine or Kashmir, or the best to free speech in Saudi Arabia, ladies are left with few choices however to stand up.
This wave of anti-hijab protests is unprecedented in Iranian historical past, and Iranians have taken the chance to broaden their calls for for freedom. An enormous variety of Iranian civil society teams, together with trainer collectives, employee unions, reformist political teams and spiritual clerics, have come out with statements demanding the abolition of the morality police.
The response of American voices, nonetheless, stays unsurprisingly retrograde. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, for instance, is calling for extra sanctions on Iran, not recognizing the brutal irony on this proposal. Characterizing the present protests as merely about necessary gown codes erases the bigger financial and political contexts that empowered the morality police and ignores the position of the USA in creating these dire financial circumstances.
Iran is presently experiencing excessive financial inflation induced largely by U.S. sanctions. The impression of the sanctions is felt the toughest by probably the most susceptible segments of society: ladies, working-class communities and ethnic minorities who wrestle to afford fundamental items. Slicing the Iranian folks off from the world by sanctions additionally permits the federal government to monopolize telecommunications and the web, with the flexibility to impose extreme restrictions on the inhabitants.
Not solely have sanctions traditionally didn’t weaken the repressive states they’re focusing on, however additionally they really profit them. Because the 1979 Revolution, U.S. actions have supplied fear-mongering alternatives for hardliners to take advantage of and construct energy. President Ebrahim Raisi’s election itself could be seen partly as a product of Trump’s army interventions and “most strain sanctions.” Because the financial system has been squeezed and strange folks undergo, the Revolutionary Guards have seized a fair larger share of the nationwide financial system, actually concentrating wealth of their palms.
And but, regardless of hardliners and sanctions, these previous few days I’ve by no means been prouder to observe Iranian ladies standing on vehicles lighting headscarves on fireplace, employees and college students pouring into the streets, and seeing indicators and slogans demanding freedom and liberation for all folks.
Girls’s rights are below assault globally, and Iranian ladies are on the frontlines of this battle. We are able to study from their braveness in standing up within the face of state violence and police brutality. To assist their trigger, we have to demand a right away lifting of sanctions (the U.S. lifted some web technology-related sanctions on Friday) in order that they’ll proceed to stand up towards oppression in all kinds.
Hoda Katebi is an Iranian American author and group organizer residing in Chicago and the Bay Space. @hodakatebi
