USA: Since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the hands of the morality police, protests have spread to nearly all of Iran's 31 provinces and urban cities. On September 13, Amini was arrested in a Tehran metro station by a morality police (Gasht-e Ershad) patrol, allegedly for violating the Islamic Republic's strict dress code.
She was taken to the hospital after the arrest, went into a coma, and died three days later. Iranian officials claim she died of a heart attack. Her family claims she had no prior heart conditions.
Her death has sparked outrage in a country rife with resentment over a long list of grievances and socioeconomic concerns.
Iranian women, fed up with the morality police's harsh tactics, have been posting videos online of themselves cutting locks of hair in support of Amini. Protesters in the streets have chanted "Death to the moral police" and "Women, life, freedom."
Female demonstrators can be seen taking off their headscarves, burning them, and dancing in the streets in acts of defiance. State police have been attacking protesters with tear gas, while members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have been beating them. So far, at least 41 people have died.
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The internet has been cut off in Tehran. I haven't been able to contact family members, but they occasionally get a message through," an Iranian man who fled to the United States during the Islamic Revolution told Arab News.
"We are hopeful that the government will offer concessions this time," Mehdi, who did not want to give his full name, added. It was the largest protest since the revolution. We are proud of what is going on in Iran."
Karim Sajdadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, described the anti-Amin protests as "led by the nation's granddaughters against the grandfathers who have ruled their country for over four decades" in The Washington Post.
Sharia laws in the country have required women to wear headscarves and loose clothing in public since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Those who violate the code face fines or imprisonment.
The Iranian government's campaign to force women to dress modestly and to prohibit the wearing of mandatory clothing "incorrectly" began shortly after the revolution, which ended an era of unrestricted sartorial freedom for women under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. During the Shah's reign, his wife Farah, who frequently dressed in Western attire, was held up as a model of a modern woman.
Women were not allowed to show their arms in public by 1981. Iran's parliament decided in 1983 that women who did not cover their hair in public would face 74 lashes. It has recently been amended to include a prison sentence of up to 60 days.
Restrictions continued to evolve, and the extent to which the female dress code was enforced has varied since 1979, depending on which president was in office. After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Tehran's ultraconservative mayor, was elected president in 2005, the Gasht-e Ershad was formed to enforce dress codes.
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The restrictions were eased slightly during Hassan Rouhani's presidency, who was regarded as a relative moderate. After Rouhani accused the morality police of being aggressive, the force's commander announced in 2017 that women who violated the modesty code would no longer be arrested.
However, President Ebrahim Raisi's rule appears to have emboldened the morality police once more. Raisi signed a decree in August to tighten enforcement of rules requiring women to wear hijabs in public at all times.
Raisi attempted to deflect blame for the Iranian protests last week by pointing to Canada's treatment of indigenous people and accusing the West of applying double standards when it comes to human rights.
Meanwhile, Raisi's government is seeking some kind of assurance that the lifting of severe sanctions and resumed business activities by Western firms will not be jeopardised if a future US president withdraws from the 2015 nuclear deal. Iranian officials also dispute the International Atomic Energy Agency's concerns about illicit nuclear material discovered at three sites and want the IAEA investigation to be concluded.
Regardless, anti-government protests in Iran are nothing new. The Green Movement protested election results that were deemed fraudulent in 2009. In 2019, there were protests over rising fuel prices and deteriorating living conditions and basic necessities.
The protests this year are unique in that they are feminist in nature. According to Firuzeh Mahmoudi, executive director of the human rights NGO United for Iran, it is unprecedented in the country to see women removing their hijabs in mass, burning police cars, and tearing down images of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (the country's supreme leader).
Men chanting "We'll support our sisters and women, life, liberty" is also unprecedented.
"Iranian women are actively participating in public discourse and exercising their civil rights through social media, mobile apps, blogs, and websites," Mahmoudi said. "Fortunately for the growing movements for women's rights, the patriarchal and misogynistic government has not yet figured out how to completely censor and control the internet."
Masih Alinejad, an Iranian political activist living in exile in America since 2009, stated that she has received numerous messages from Iranian women. They've been venting to her about their frustrations, showing her videos of the protests, and saying their final goodbyes to their parents.
Alinejad stated that she can feel their rage through their messages and that the hijab is a way for the government to control women and thus society, adding that "their hair and their identity have been taken hostage."
Several Iranian male celebrities have also expressed support for the protests and women. Toomaj Salehi, a dissident rapper arrested earlier this year for his lyrics about regime change and social and political issues, posted a video of himself walking through the streets with the caption, "My tears don't dry, it's blood, it's anger." The end is near, and history is repeating itself. Be afraid of us, step back, and realise you're done."
The film industry, for its part, issued a statement on Saturday urging the military to lay down their weapons and "return to the arms of the nation."
A number of well-known actresses have removed their hijab in support of the movement and protests. Iran's culture minister, Mohammad Mehdi Esmaili, stated that actresses who expressed their support online and removed their hijabs will no longer be able to pursue their careers.
"To understand Iran's protests, it's striking to juxtapose images of the young, modern women killed in Iran over the last week (Mahsa Amini, Ghazale Chelavi, Hanane Kia, Mahsa Mogoi) with images of the country's ruling elite, virtually all deeply traditional, geriatric men," Sajdadpour said in a tweet on Saturday.
Iranian authorities have disrupted WhatsApp and Instagram services by shutting down mobile internet connections. On the Iranian state news agency ISNA, Issa Zarepour, the minister of communications, justified the act as "national security" and stated that it was unclear how long the blocks on social media platforms and WhatsApp would remain in place, as they were implemented for "security purposes and discussions related to recent events."
However, Mahsa Alimardani, an Oxford Internet Institute academic who studies Iran's internet shutdowns and controls, claims that the authorities are targeting these platforms because they are "lifelines for information and communication that keeps the protests alive."
The hashtag #MahsaAmini in Farsi has received well over 30 million tweets.
"Everyone in Iran knows that the authorities will crack down hard on the protesters and kill them," Mehdi, an Iranian living in the United States, told Arab News.
"It's practically target practise for them." It gives me goose bumps to see how the women there are standing up to the ruthless and vicious regime that has never shied away from genocide to maintain their power. It takes a lot of guts to do what they're doing."
"The flame has been ignited, and we are not the type of people who back out," he said, looking forward to the future with optimism.
