Iranian women have been fighting for freedom for four decades. Could this moment, asks Nosheen Iqbal, change everything?
It is too dangerous for revolutionaries in Iran to speak publicly about their experiences right now, but in the UK a wave of Iranian and British Iranian activists and advocates are trying to make sure their message is heard. Mahbobi, otherwise known as Shole Salehi, is among that number.
Day after dangerous day, the people of Iran are rising up against a regime that has successfully stifled and choked every attempted revolt against it since 1979: the Green Movement in 2009; the economic protests in 2017; the civil disobedience in 2019 . That is, until now. On 13 September 2022, news that Iran’s morality police had beaten a 22-year-old woman for reportedly not wearing her hijab “properly” provoked waves of disgust and anger across the country.
Protests erupted in the northwest Kurdish province that Amini came from and quickly spread. A fuse had been lit. Women burnt their hijabs, cut their hair and took to the streets to demonstrate. Schoolgirls and boys bravely joined the fight, shouting slogans telling the mullahs to “get lost” and “death to the dictator”. University campuses endured violent crackdowns, while thousands of Iranians are still being arrested, beaten, wounded and brutally injured by the state’s security forces.
“We have to amplify their voices,” says Roxanna Vatandoust, a 22-year-old Londoner, who has created viral Instagram posts spreading news and images suppressed by the Iranian authorities. She is in awe of the young Iranians on the front line leading a defiant, heroic rebellion and is desperate to support their struggle.
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