Introduction
The Guidance Patrol of Tehran’s capital city noticed the 22-year-old woman as she came out of the metro, her dark hair covered with a black scarf.And her body’s lines hidden with baggy garments. They were members of Iran’s infamous morality police. Who are enforcing the strict Islamic dress and conduct codes that have regulated Iranians’ daily lives since the 1979 revolution.Their prominent president had been given them new life.
Why women are force for change?
Since Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, died in Tehran. Iran has had widespread protests for more than two months.While being detained by the morality police. Despite escalating brutality from the regime, the youth-led movement has continued to grow and attract attention on a global scale.
When the Guidance Patrol of the capital city spotted her.She was wearing loose attire and had a black head scarf covering her dark hair. They were members of Iran’s infamous morality police, enforcing the strict Islamic dress.And conduct codes that have regulated Iranians’ daily lives since the 1979 revolution.They had been given new life by the hard-line president who entered office last year.
Mahsa Amini was not properly attired in their eyes, which may have been as simple as a stray hair poking out from under her head scarf. She was placed in a van and taken to a jail where she was to receive re-education. On September 16, three days later, she passed away.
Slogan- “Women, Life and Freedom”
Her name is now well known after several days of rage, elation, and street fights.The largest display of opposition to the political establishment in more than ten years. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the ailing supreme leader of the Iranian Republic, has been the subject of anti-theocratic protests in dozens of cities. They have been shouting“women, life and freedom”.And “death to the dictator” in order to denounce the country’s theocratic government.
Women have been seen tearing off their head coverings and setting them ablaze in public places.Particularly in places with a strong religious tradition like Qum and Mashhad.
On Saturday, demonstrators yelled at Tehran University. “Death to the head scarf! Until when must we tolerate such humiliation?”
When comparing this protest to those in 2007 and 2017, are there any differences?
The Iranian security forces have brutally put down rallies in the past, including those against rigged elections in 2009.Poor economic management in 2017 and fuel price increases in 2019. This time may be no different. However, for the first time since the Iranian Republic’s formation, the present rebellion has brought together Fars majority citizens. The ethnic minorities, as well as wealthy Iranians who live in northern Tehran’s high-rise apartments and the city’s suffering market vendors.
Many observers assert that this demonstrators’ wrath in Iran is how they interpret the unmet needs of their concerns. It is the product of other demonstrations that took place years ago, overt repression, a bad economy, and social restrictions.
StatedShadi Sadr, a well-known human rights attorney who has fought for Iranian women’s rights for 20 years:
“The anger isn’t over just Mahsa’s death, but that she should have never been arrested in the first place”.
“Because they have nothing to lose,” she added, “they are standing up and saying, ‘Enough of this. I am willing to die to have a life worth living.’”
For years, Nasrin Sotoudeh has defended these women in Iranian courts.Iran has a human rights lawyer named Nasrin Sotoudeh. Following the contested Iranian presidential elections in June 2009.She has defended political and opposition figures who are currently detained in Iran as well as those who were given the death penalty for crimes they committed as youths.
She stated:
The security personnel and morality police violently detained the women on Revolution Street. Some of these women’s attorneys were myself. Frequently, they were really yanked or hurled from the pedestal they occupied. One of them still had a hole in her leg the size of a coin when she was brought from prison to court so that I could represent her. This hole was the result of her falling on a metal rod and sustaining an injury. And under those circumstances she was summoned to court.
I recall giving numerous interviews and frequently speaking to judges during the years when Iran’s women’s movement was highly strong. And I would warn them that the extreme unfairness and cruelty meted out to women. It will eventually push Iran over the edge and into a state of emergency. Today, we have arrived at that stage.
In my visits to Iran over the years, people who complained about their government also described a limited appetite for confronting it. They often cited the collective trauma of the Revolution—which to Iranians takes in not just the events of 1979 that brought the mullahs to power, but also the eight-year war against Iraq that immediately followed, and claimed at least half a million lives. But are most Iranians today too young to remember that trauma? Did the country age out of its self-restraint?
The information that has slowly been making its way out also points to a growing crackdown. Live fire and tear gas have been used by the authorities to violently put an end to the protests. Numerous deaths have occurred. The arrests of activists are also increasing, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported on Saturday. At least 17 journalists have been jailed, including one of the first to report on Amini’sillness.
Top officials in the regime “always said, ‘We’re not going to make concessions, because if we make one small concession, we’ll have to make bigger concessions,'” according to Mohamed Ali Kadivar, a sociologist at Boston College who was born in Iran and focuses on protest movements there and around the world. “They might shove people off the street, but repression won’t stop this because people want change, so this won’t stop. They would simply go home for a time before returning, even after a crackdown.
One of the earliest demonstrations against the ayatollahs following the 1979 revolution was led by women.Who did not want to be forced to wear a head scarf, or hijab, in public. The legislation forcing women to cover their hair and wear loose robes has been a lightning rod for reform-minded Iranians for decades.
The morality police were deterred from implementing Iran’s frequently harsh regulations against women under the reformist Hassan Rouhani’s administration.Particularly, the demand that they wear the hijab in public in the appropriate manner. Even in the most fervently traditional cities like Qum, this resulted in young women displaying more hair. In some locations, unmarried men and women were permitted to interact in public.While in posh northern Tehran, Western-style cafes blared contemporary Western music.
Three coffee shops in central Qum were shut down for having bareheaded patrons during the course of the summer as Iran’s morality police.Which monitors public spaces for violations of Islamic law, increased enforcement of hijab standards. In a video that was extensively circulated on Iranian social media in July. A woman who was having her daughter taken away for not wearing a headscarf flung herself in front of the vehicle and yelled, “My daughter is unwell, I beg you not to take her.”
However, the nation’s conservative leadership perceived the lowering of standards as a challenge to the theocratic roots of the republic. The official news agency IRNA said that Mr. Raisi demanded in July that the strict dress codes be put into “full” effect. They claimed that “the enemies of Iran and Islam” were aiming to undermine the “religious foundations and values of the nation.”
Because of the outrage over Amini’s passing, both liberal and conservative Iranians have spoken out. Women who choose to wear the hijab have started solidarity campaigns on social media criticising the strict implementation of the restrictions. However, a well-known religious leader has claimed that the morality police are merely turning young women away from Islam. Even closely regulated official media sources have addressed the problem, airing at least three debates with reformist voices—a scarcity.
Authorities’ use of force on Amini has been refuted. They asserted that she had a heart attack.While in detention and that she had an underlying medical problem, which her family has contested. However, images of her laying on a hospital bed with her face injured told a different tale to many Iranians.
Iran’s response to the protests has been to give no quarter.Despite Mr. Raisi’s promise of a probe in a slight bow to the rage. Bullets, tear gas, arrests, and blood are all present, just as they were in earlier revolutions.
Internet outages
Hundreds of towns saw protests against high inflation and a sluggish economy as 2017 gave way to 2018. They were once more confronted with violence. A weeklong protest by Iranians fed up with shrinking budgets, corruption, and persecution. That broke out in 2019 after the government dramatically increased fuel prices. Amnesty International estimates that at least 300 people were killed in the subsequent response by the government.Which also delayed the protests’ progress by blocking or interfering with the internet.
The internet outages are suddenly happening again. The Biden administration on Friday gave technology companies permission to provide safe platforms.All the services inside Iran without running the danger of breaking American sanctions.That would typically make doing business with Iran impossible. This will allow Iranians access the internet. Additionally, it authorised the delivery of private satellite internet gear to Iran, such as the Starlink service provided by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.