Lucy Sweeney and Nassim Khadem* say current women’s protests in Iran is driven by a globally connected movement.
For two months, Iranian women have been marching in the streets, burning their hijabs and cutting off their hair in mass protests against the Islamic Republic.
What began as a response to the death of one young woman at the hands of the regime’s morality police has spiralled into a far-reaching movement calling for radical change, in the face of significant danger.
Protesters have reported being verbally abused, interrogated, beaten and raped, while others have been threatened with sexual violence.
Human rights groups say more than 300 protesters and bystanders have been killed in this time, including dozens of children.
An estimated 15,000 people have been arrested, including prominent journalists, lawyers and civil rights activists, some charged with “acting against national security”.
There are fears many will be sentenced to death.
But the protests show no signs of stopping.
The roots of this movement date back to the 1979 revolution that saw the nation’s last royal dynasty replaced by the Islamic Republic.
Just weeks after the new government took its place at the helm, it became clear that the freedom and prosperity it had promised would not apply to all Iranians.
Ayatollah Khomeini — who had invoked the hijab as the symbol of the revolution — decreed that veils would become mandatory in the workplace.
Women, in their thousands, marched to the prime minister’s office and the supreme leader’s residence, shouting: “We didn’t have a revolution to go backwards.”
In the decades since, Iranians have repeatedly demanded justice, freedom and equality.
Many have been arrested, tortured or killed for doing so.
In 1999, they were students decrying the closure of a reformist newspaper.
In 2009, the so-called Green Movement was calling for transparency and democracy after a rigged election.
And, in 2019, after a spike in inflation and hefty increases to the price of fuel and essential goods, Iranians again took to the streets over widespread economic inequality.
Each time the protests spanned major cities and regional and rural areas, and each time the dissent was eventually stamped out by a relentless — and often brutal — regime.
But observers say this time, things are different.
A new generation determined to learn from their past
Haleh Esfandiari — an Iranian-American scholar and founding director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington DC — has spent much of her career campaigning for women’s rights.
Having fled her home in 1980 after the revolution, Dr Esfandiari worked as a journalist, professor and policy adviser, and spent 105 days in a Tehran prison over accusations of a plot to topple the regime.
She says that, while Iranians have brought their fight to the streets many times since the 1979 revolution, there is something remarkable about what is happening today.
“This is the second time in the history of the Islamic Republic that women have taken the initiative in their hands, and started the protest movement,” she told the ABC.
“Of course, [in 1979], they were accused of being middle-class women associated with the previous regime.
“This time, the leadership of this movement is with the children of the revolution.
“They were born 20 years after the revolution — they went to school in Iran, they went to university, they were indoctrinated all along.
“And it didn’t make a difference at all.”
Like Mahsa Amini, the majority of those at the forefront of this protest are from Gen Z, better known in Iran as Dahe Hashtadi (Persian for “the Eighties”, which corresponds with the Iranian calendar years they were born, 1375–1389).
They make up just 7 per cent of the population, but they are unafraid to make their voices heard.
“These young women are not scared of dying,” Dr Esfandiari said.
“That a young girl of 18 comes out knowing that she might be shot … is unbelievable.”
Amnesty International identified at least 23 children and teenagers killed in the first month of protests, including 17 who were killed when security forces fired live ammunition.
Dr Esfandiari says this generation are highly educated, globally connected and utterly fed up with the status quo.
“They are educated, they are smart, they are savvy, and they know what goes on in the rest of the world.
“That makes a big difference,” she said.
“They couldn’t take it any longer.
“They see themselves just like other young people living in the West, and they want to have that kind of life … they don’t want to be second-class citizens.
“They don’t want to be humiliated all the time.”
Crucially, this generation of protesters are not only informed about the world outside Iran, but the history of those who fought before them.
“This generation tends to question authority, doesn’t believe in the existing red lines drawn by society, or the regime, and is unwilling to take for granted the holiness of any sacred cows, whether religion, the country’s laws and regulations, or anything else,” Maysam Bizaer wrote for the Middle East Institute.
Videos have shown protesters at the University of Tehran chanting, urging people to “rise up, that’s enough; until the next Cinema Rex”.
The movie theatre in the south-western city of Abadan was set alight in 1978, killing hundreds of people locked inside, the second-deadliest terrorist attack in history.
The ruling Pahlavi dynasty determined Shiite revolutionaries had started the fire, while anti-Pahlavi protesters blamed SAVAK, Iran’s secret police, for orchestrating a “false flag” attack to justify cracking down on dissent.
In any case, the Cinema Rex fire is seen by many as the tipping point that led to the 1979 revolution.
More than 40 years later, young Iranians are pushing for a revolution of their own.
What does the Iranian protest movement want?
While Iranian protest movements in the past have targeted inequality, welfare and particular aspects of the oppressive regime, this time the demands are broader.
Chants of “woman, life, freedom” and “death to the dictator” ring out at demonstrations across the country, in what many see as the battle cry of a revolution.
Iranian-American journalist and women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad launched an online campaign in 2014, calling on women to share pictures of themselves without their hijabs, a mandatory garment for girls once they reach puberty in the Islamic Republic.
She has twice been targeted in alleged kidnapping and assassination plots.
“The headscarf is not just a small piece of cloth for Iranian women.
“It is the main pillar of a religious dictatorship,” Ms Alinejad told the ABC.
She says the current protest movement may have started with hijabs, but it won’t stop until there is widespread change.
“The headscarf hijab is like the Berlin Wall.
“If we tear this wall down, the Islamic Republic won’t exist,” she says.
“That is why you see teenagers facing guns and bullets.
“[They] are saying: ‘We have nothing to lose … we’re ready to die, we don’t want to live with humiliation’.
“This is totally different from previous protests that we have been witnessing, because this time it’s against gender apartheid regime and [the] Iranian [people have] made up their mind to end [the] Islamic Republic.”
Dr Esfandiari says almost all Iranians are frustrated with poor job opportunities, economic difficulties and the staggering prices of everyday goods, but for young women, their fundamental goal is simply to have the same rights as anyone else.
“Military police can approach a woman and say, ‘Cover your hair, pull down your sleeves, why do you wear a makeup? Why do you wear nail polish? Why do you laugh?’” she explained.
“You would think that the government, after 43 years, had learned its lesson to live and let live, to let the younger generation just be free, and do what they want.
“What a waste of funds, of energy, from the side of the government, to have all these problems and focus on how young women are talking, to whom they are talking, how they are dressed, how they interact.”
Is this the revolution Iranians have long hoped for?
With the Iranian regime using everything in its arsenal to crush the protest movement, there are fears inside and outside the country that this wave of protests may subside.
Aside from the police and legal system, the government has been using propaganda, censorship and restricting internet access in its bid to control the movement.
Academics have noted that many countries that overthrew oppressive governments during the Arab Spring have stalled or made limited progress since their uprisings.
Yet there are glimmers of hope.
Dr Esfandiari says not only are the women at the forefront of the fight more determined than ever, but there has also been a notable shift in the global community.
“In the 60 years that I have followed the women’s movement in Iran, I don’t think they ever got such support internationally,” Dr Esfandiari said.
“So that gives them a lot of courage, [and] an energy that’s very important.”
She also noted that the Iranian diaspora was pushing for change from the outside, lobbying their politicians and putting pressure on governments to confront the Islamic regime.
Supporters outside Iran are sharing virtual private networks to help protesters stay online and access the information they need, and sharing tips on how to skirt facial recognition technology being used to target protesters.
They are also actively lobbying world leaders for regime change, with calls for leaders to pull their ambassadors out of Tehran, expel the Islamic Republic of Iran from UN Women, freeze all nuclear talks, and designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation.
“That’s something that maybe gives [women in Iran] energy.
They don’t feel they are just alone, by themselves,” Dr Esfandiari said.
“There is a world outside Iran that is focusing on them, that is supporting them.
“I think this has made a big difference.
“But, again, let’s see how it will end.”
*Lucy Sweeney is a digital journalist and producer with the ABC’s International team. Nassim Khadem is an award-winning journalist, reporting on business news across online, radio and TV for the ABC.
This article first appeared at abc.net.au.
