The Islamic Republic of Iran was constructed on the bricks of patriarchal misogyny. One of revolutionary chief Khomeini’s first acts when he got here to energy in 1979 was to revoke girls’s rights to marriage, custody, and divorce. This consists of decreasing the authorized age of marriage for girls from 18 to 9, at which women can nonetheless marry in Iran.
Not solely had been Iranian girls pressured to put on veils, however they had been additionally prohibited from dancing or singing alone in public, driving bicycles, attending matches in sports activities arenas, or serving as judges or presidents. It is being They should sit behind the bus and may solely journey overseas with the husband’s permission. Their court docket testimony and inheritance are thought of to be price half as a lot as males’s. They are among the many few girls on this planet who had extra rights than her grandmother.
Nothing frightens the Islamic Republic’s rulers greater than an independence-minded girl, and one yr after Mahsa Zina Amini died in police custody, the flames of revolution stay robust within the hearts of Iranians. They know it is nonetheless burning inside. More than merely condemning the strict costume code that Amini was charged with violating, “Women, Life, Freedom” acknowledges the significance of ladies’s rights within the pursuit of regular life and elementary freedoms for all residents. This is a slogan that has a robust synergistic impact. .
Read extra: Mahsa Amini’s dying nonetheless haunts Iranian regime
The brutal forces of theocracy might have been wiped from the streets, however the individuals’s revolt is much from over. Female journalists Nazira Marfian and Sepideh Ghorian proceed to defy the regime regardless of being imprisoned a number of occasions. Mahmonir Mollaei-Rad, the mom of nine-year-old aspiring inventor Kian Pirfalak, who was killed by safety forces, resides beneath her home arrest as she continues to hunt justice for her son. Dozens of Iranian feminine athletes compete with out being required to put on hijabs, outstanding actresses take off their veils in public in protest, and a whole lot of 1000’s of ladies put on hijabs in Iran’s main cities. continues to be ignored.
Female protesters march towards the veil, surrounded by males for defense, in Tehran, March 10, 1979.Bettman Archive/Getty Images
Martha’s homicide galvanized a widespread pro-democracy rebellion. Today, hundreds of thousands of college college students, commerce unions, dissidents, ethnic, non secular, sexual and different minority teams imagine that the standing of ladies and women is inextricably linked to the inclusive democracy they search. I’m conscious of that. They perceive that ladies’s rights can’t be separated from human rights and common dignity.
In the instant aftermath of the 1979 revolution, too few Iranian males confirmed solidarity because the regime plundered the rights of their wives, moms, daughters, and sisters. But over the previous yr, they’ve united with Iranian girls to oppose a gender apartheid regime that maintains energy by silencing those that don’t share its illiberal Islamist ideology.
Pop singer Mehdi Yarahi was jailed in August for her tune “Rusalito” (“Your Scarf”), which championed girls to take away their obligatory veils. Prominent dissident Majid Tavakoli is days away from being sentenced to a different lengthy jail sentence for his liberal advocacy. Images of hospitalized and intubated protester Javad Rouhi, a 31-year-old protester who died after being tortured whereas incarcerated, are eerily much like photos of Mahasa that circulated on-line final yr.
An Iranian girl who isn’t required to put on a scarf walks in Tehran on September 12, 2023. Morteza Nicobazul—NurPhoto/Reuters
This idea is most profoundly mirrored within the singer’s tune, which gained the primary Social Change Grammy Award for Best Song in 2023 and is maybe essentially the most convincing manifesto of the Iranian individuals’s longings. It’s author Shervin Hajipour’s tune “Baraye” (as a result of). The tune appeals to society’s grievances with lyrics that contact on themes comparable to poverty, financial hardship, corruption, environmental mismanagement, human rights violations, gender inequality, and the longing for a traditional life. ” grew to become a world anthem.
Mahasa Jina Amini was younger, feminine, and a member of a non secular minority group. She represented Iran’s vibrant range, the antithesis of the homogeneous, illiberal, growing older male Shiite clerics that dominate the Islamic Republic. History has proven that when girls are on the forefront, not solely are democratic actions extra more likely to succeed, however outcomes are higher for all who search their rights and freedoms. The centrality of ladies’s rights on this motion solely strengthens the purpose of a free, secular, and democratic Iran. That’s why Iran’s Freedom for Women’s Life revolution not solely endures, however is without doubt one of the most essential and promising political actions in fashionable Middle Eastern historical past.