Iranian Women Demanding Justice

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

"[Those who foment unrest to] sabotage [the country deserve harsh prosecution and punishment. Young people who] come to the streets after excitement after watching something on the internet should be] disciplined."

"[I was] heartbroken [by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody; a] sad incident."

"This rioting was planned. These riots and insecurities were designed by America and the Zionist regime, and their employees."

"[I condemn protesters ripping off hijabs, setting fire to mosques, banks and police cars], actions that are not normal, that are unnatural."

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

 

"The regime's brute force [at Sharif University as] an expression of sheer fear at the power of education and freedom [must be condemned]."

"The courage of Iranians is incredible."

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock

The mass demonstrations over Mahsa Amini's death in Iranian police custody could create lasting change, say analysts.

 

A simple young woman from a small village in Iran's Kurdistan region, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini came to Tehran on a visit with her father and brother. She wore her headscarf casually, as was the custom in her village, never imagining it would be seen as a sacrilegious offence against the rules and regulations imposed on women throughout Iran, since in Kurdistan she had never before encountered criticism of her attire. But loose strands of hair became a criminal offence the Tehran morality police found serious enough to arrest her for.

 

Her desperate cries to her father and brother to have her released left them helpless and her in custody in a police van. Later, other women the morality police had arrested, sharing prisoner space in the van with her spoke of the guards beating the young women while she cried out in agony and fear. For some unknown reason her fear seemed to make her a target for their misogynistic rage. She would never see her father and brother again, nor would they see her alive.

 

Her family speak quite plainly of her death by beating in custody. While police authirties claim the young woman died of a heart attack. Iranians the world over are infuriated and join protests to express their anger at the Iranian clerical regime. The theocracy in Iran is facing popular opposition of a kind and volume rarely encountered. Leaving the regime to order the military, the Iranian Republican Guard Corps, the motorcycle brigade called the Basij to control the crowds chanting death to the regime. 

An image from social media which is claimed to show Iranian schoolchildren expressing dissatisfaction towards the country's leadership. Photograph: Twitter

 

Iranian women are vociferously protesting, marching in crowds of enraged people, chanting death to the Ayatollah, waving their headscarves in defiance, cutting off their hair in solidarity with their cause of liberation from the shackles of Khomeinism's Islamist regime. Schoolgirls are defiant, heckling and taunting the Basij, while their mothers and grandmothers clad in black chadors, the anxiety on their faces hidden, as they attempt to herd their daughters back home from school and away from the raging morality police.

 

Iran closed its Sharif Univ4rsity of Technology in Tehran with the announcement that only doctoral students would be permitted on campus following the turmoil of student protests. Police kept hundreds of students on campus, firing rounds of tear gas, while dispersing the protests. Plainclothed police arrested and detained hundreds of students, beating some university staff. "Suppose we beat and arrest, is this the solution?" rhetorically asked a column n a normally hard-line Iranian newspaper, the Jomhouri Eslami: "Is this productive?" 

The protests that began in Kurdistan, have spread throughout the theocratic country. From Tehran to far-flung provinces, with authorities desperate to bring an end to the riotous displays of anger with the regime, disrupting internet access, blocking social media apps. Across the Middle East and Europe, Canada and the United States, people are coming out in drove to protest in support of those doing just that in Iran. 

 

Women have been at the forefront of the protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini  EPA

 

Citizens of Germany, Poland, Italy France, Sweden, the Netherlands and other countries have been detained by Iranian authorities. Mahsa Amini, in her lifetime, would never have been able to imagine how important she has become in her country of birth. At least a hundred people have been killed while protesting her death, many more injured. Thousands have been arrested, leaving the regime frantic with apprehension. The size of the protests have motivated the regime to surreptitiously bring in Arabs to help restrain the protesters; hard-liners from Syria and Iraq, Lebanon and reportedly Palestinians.