An estimated 23 children have been killed in protests across Iran in response to the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, who was arrested for wearing her hijab incorrectly
Author of the article:National Post Wire Services
Publishing date:Oct 18, 2022 •
A 16-year-old Iranian schoolgirl has died after she was beaten for refusing to sing a pro-regime song in school, setting off a wave of new protests against the Islamic Republic, according to multiple reports.
Asra Panahi was in school last week when security forces allegedly entered the Shahed girls high school in Ardabil and demanded the students sing in praise of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Al Khamenei, The Guardian in London reported, citing the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations.
When the girls refused, the security forces struck them, sending Panahi and several others to hospital, The Guardian said. Panahi died the next day, several reports said.
“Schoolgirl Asra Panahi died on Wednesday after being beaten by security forces in Iran. A high school in Ardabil, city, forced students to join a pro regime rally. Students refused and instead they chanted: ‘Women Life Freedom.’ That’s why they got beaten up,” said Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist and activist, in a tweet on Sunday.
Iran is said to have denied that its security forces were responsible. A man identified as her uncle appeared on state TV to say Panahi had died from a congenital heart condition, according to The Guardian.
Iran’s teachers’ union decried the raids on schools, which were part of a crackdown after videos of students waving their hijabs in the air and removing photos of Iran’s leaders went viral on the internet. There were reports of Iranian authorities arresting schoolgirls and firing teargas in schools.
An estimated 23 children have been killed in protests spreading across Iran in response to the September death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was arrested by the morality police for wearing her hijab incorrectly, according to a UN Rights spokeswoman on Tuesday, urging Iranian authorities to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators.
Meanwhile fears grow for the fate of an Iranian competitive climber who left South Korea on Tuesday after competing at an event in which she climbed without her nation’s mandatory headscarf covering. Farsi-language media outside of Iran warned Elnaz Rekabi may have been forced to leave early by Iranian officials and could face arrest back home, which Tehran quickly denied.
A later Instagram post on an account attributed to Rekabi described her not wearing a hijab as “unintentional,” though it wasn’t immediately clear whether she wrote the post or what condition she was in at the time. The Iranian government routinely pressures activists at home and abroad, often airing what rights group describe as coerced confessions on state television.
Rekabi left Seoul on a Tuesday morning flight, the Iranian Embassy in South Korea said. The BBC’s Persian service, which has extensive contacts within Iran despite being banned from operating there, quoted an unnamed “informed source” who described Iranian officials as seizing both Rekabi’s mobile phone and passport.
BBC Persian also said she initially had been scheduled to return on Wednesday, but her flight apparently had been moved up unexpectedly.
IranWire, another website focusing on the country founded by Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari who once was detained by Iran, alleged that Rekabi would be immediately transferred to Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison after arriving in the country. Evin Prison was the site of a massive fire this weekend that killed at least eight prisoners.
In a tweet, the Iranian Embassy in Seoul denied “all the fake, false news and disinformation” regarding Rekabi’s departure on Tuesday. But instead of posting a photo of her from the Seoul competition, it posted an image of her wearing a headscarf at a previous competition in Moscow, where she took a bronze medal.
Calls to the Iranian Embassy in Seoul rang unanswered Tuesday. Rekabi didn’t put on a hijab during Sunday’s final at the International Federation of Sport Climbing’s Asia Championship, according to the Seoul-based Korea Alpine Federation, the organizers of the event.
Federation officials said Rekabi wore a hijab during her initial appearances at the one-week climbing event. She wore just a black headband when competing Sunday, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail; she had a white jersey with Iran’s flag as a logo on it.
The later Instagram post, written in the first person, offered an apology on Rekabi’s behalf. The post blamed a sudden call for her to climb the wall in the competition — although footage of the competition showed Rekabi relaxed as she approached and after she competed. It also sought to describe her travel back to Iran on Tuesday as being “on schedule.”
Rekabi, 33, was on Iran’s 11-member delegation, comprised of eight athletes and three coaches, according to the federation.
Federation officials said they were not initially aware of Rekabi competing without the hijab but looked into the case after receiving inquiries. They said the event doesn’t have any rules on requiring female athletes wearing or not wearing headscarves. However, Iranian women competing abroad under the Iranian flag always wear the hijab.
“Our understanding is that she is returning to Iran, and we will continue to monitor the situation as it develops on her arrival,” the International Federation of Sport Climbing, which oversaw the event, said. “It is important to stress that athletes’ safety is paramount for us and we support any efforts to keep a valued member of our community safe in this situation.”
The federation said it had been in touch with both Rekabi and Iranian officials, but declined to elaborate on the substance of those calls when reached by The Associated Press. The federation also declined to discuss the Instagram post attributed to Rekabi and the claims in it.
Later Tuesday, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry acknowledged that the Iranian athlete and her team had left the country, without elaborating.
So far, human rights groups estimate that over 200 people have been killed in the protests and the violent security force crackdown that followed. Iran has not offered a death toll in weeks.
Thousands are believed to have been arrested.
Gathering information about the demonstrations remains difficult, however. Internet access has been disrupted for weeks by the Iranian government. Meanwhile, authorities have detained at least 40 journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Iranian officials, including the Supreme Leader, has repeatedly alleged the country’s foreign enemies are behind the ongoing demonstrations, rather than Iranians angered by Amini’s death and the country’s other woes.
Iranians have seen their life savings evaporate; the country’s currency, the rial, plummeted and Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers has been reduced to tatters.
Virginia Chamlee
Tue, October 18, 2022
A picture obtained by AFP outside Iran on September 21, 2022, shows Iranian demonstrators burning a rubbish bin in the capital Tehran during a protest for Mahsa Amini, days after she died in police custody. - Protests spread to 15 cities across Iran overnight over the death of the young woman Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the country's morality police, state media reported today.In the fifth night of street rallies, police used tear gas and made arrests to disperse crowds of up to 1,000 people, the official IRNA news agency said.
AFP via Getty Iran protests
Weeks after the death of a 22-year-old Iranian woman who was detained for allegedly wearing a hijab too loosely, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield admits she can't fathom the "hell and torture" that women in Iran are enduring. Women who, in recent weeks, have taken to the streets to protest Mahsa Amini's death — facing violence and even death themselves.
But Thomas-Greenfield, a 35-year veteran of the foreign service who has held positions around the globe, says the protests aren't for naught.
"I cannot imagine what Iranian women are going through today and the kind of hell and torture they are being forced to endure," Thomas-Greenfield tells PEOPLE. "Just because they want to decide how they will dress every day. That is a simple, simple right that they have."
Linda Thomas-Greenfield
Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP/Shutterstock Linda Thomas-Greenfield
As Thomas-Greenfield explains, the protests were sparked in mid-September, when Amini was reportedly arrested by Iran's Morality Police for wearing her hijab improperly.
"She was arrested and taken into police custody for what they call an 'educational and reorientation class,'" Thomas-Greenfield says. "Some hours later, she was transferred to the hospital in a coma and she died two days later."
While Amini's family was told by Iranian police that she had suffered from a heart condition, her family has disputed that assessment, saying she had no heart ailment and that bruises seen on her body indicated she had been tortured.
RELATED: Iranian Athlete Elnaz Rekabi Will Be Jailed for Competing Without Hijab
As word began to spread about Amini's death, protests cropped up around the country, often featuring women removing their hijabs and cutting their hair in defiance of the Morality Police, which the U.S. State Department has described as an organization that "arrests women for wearing 'inappropriate' hijab and enforces other restrictions on freedom of expression."
Thomas-Greenfield says that similar law enforcement arms which police "morality" have been seen elsewhere in the world, including in Afghanistan, where The Ministry of Vice and Virtue became a notorious symbol of arbitrary abuses during the previous Taliban reign of the mid-1990s.
"These [law enforcement agencies governing morality] tend to be particularly harsh against women," Thomas-Greenfield says.
RELATED: CNN's Christiane Amanpour Says Iran President Cancelled an Interview After She Declined to Wear a Hijab
She continues: "We all have to get educated about what is happening everywhere in the world. Human rights are rights that we should all support. Women's rights are human rights. The fact that these women are being forced to dress in a certain way, that many can not be educated, many are not allowed to work, not allowed out of their homes ... We need to be aware of these things so we can add our voices to the chorus of others and give these women whatever support we can give them."
In response to Amini's death "and other human rights violations in Iran," State Department Secretary Antony Blinken announced earlier this month that the U.S. had imposed sanctions both on Iran's Morality Police and on "senior security officials who have engaged in serious human rights abuses."
The sanctions will target "seven senior leaders of Iran's security organizations: the Morality Police, Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), the Army's Ground Forces, Basij Resistance Forces, and Law Enforcement Forces," according to the Treasury Department.
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"These officials oversee organizations that routinely employ violence to suppress peaceful protesters and members of Iranian civil society, political dissidents, women's rights activists, and members of the Iranian Baha'i community," the Treasury Department statement said.
And then there are the protests happening within Iran, which Thomas-Greenfield says send another message.
"The protests have ignited the entire country. There are now men engaged in the protests in support of the women, and women are protesting around the world," Thomas-Greenfield says. "It really has ignited a new level of action inside of Iran against this government."
RELATED: Iran's Soccer Team Covers Up Their National Emblem as Mahsa Amini Protests Continue
Despite the sanctions and protests, the Iranian government has yet to back down, with protesters being beaten and in some cases killed or jailed.
According to Thomas-Greenfield, up to 100 women have so far been killed, with countless others injured or taken to the hospital as a result of the protests. Others are being jailed. Just this week, reports emerged that a female Iranian athlete who competed in a climbing competition without a hijab would be arrested upon returning home from the competition.
"I saw pictures of women with pellet holes in their back, bleeding because of these attacks," Thomas-Greenfield tells PEOPLE. "They need to hear from the world that we have their backs."
RELATED: Marion Cotillard and Juliette Binoche Cut Their Hair in Support of Iranian Civil Rights Protesters
Now, the American government is looking at how it might provide visas to women trying to get out of the country, or how it can expand internet access to arts of Iran that cut off the mode of communication amid the protests.
"They want to try and keep the rest of the world from watching their crackdown," the ambassador says.
As the protests rage on, Thomas-Greenfield says education about the issues is more integral than ever.
"We really do have to educate ourselves about what is happening in the world, so we can advocate for these brave women," she says. "Our voices are important for Iranian women to hear, so they know they have the support of the world when they take the very brave and courageous action of taking to the streets."
Voices:
‘Iranian women aren’t sleeping’:
This is what it’s like being a woman
in Iran right now
I am an Iranian writer who was born after the 1979 revolution. I live in Tehran. Like Mahsa Amini and other women, I have been arrested many times on the street for not wearing a hijab and have suffered the brutal behavior of police.
Since I was six years old, I have been ordered to remain silent and not question the wearing of the hijab in girls’ schools. When I was a child, my mother and aunt were detained in front of my eyes on the street for hijab “offences” and kept in jail for a night.
The murder of Mahsa Amini has shocked us all. And it has made me think about how we got here – and what we need to do now to get out.
After the 1979 revolution in Iran, a radical Shia government came to power, which claims to be able to run society based on the laws of Islam 1,400 years ago. It relies on reactionary Shari’a rulings, some of which involve mandatory restrictions on women. According to the Islamic laws, the woman is considered the man’s land; part of his property. A man can give her commands and prohibitions, just like a pet.
A large number of women who protested in 1979 were killed or imprisoned or fled from Iran. This new regime, with its restrictions on women’s clothing and situation, established from that point that a woman’s body was in fact the property of the “authorities”.
With laws such as stoning and flogging women in public, and other medieval performances, the new regime managed to make it clear that women are to be used to keep the rest of society silent. In other words, by conquering and encroaching on women as property – by punishing her – the regime can show off its power.
Iranian women are protesting against the violation of our rights, but it’s not just restricted to our clothing. Here is what else is at stake:
A woman’s testimony in court is counted as half of a man’s. If a witness is needed to prove a crime, two women have to testify so that they have testified as much as one man.
Women do not have the right to enter stadiums to watch sports (Sahar Khodayari died in protest at a jail sentence for going to watch a football match).
Women do not have the right to dance and sing; or the right to abortion. The punishment for abortion is equal to killing a living human being.
A woman cannot be a court judge. A woman cannot divorce her husband – this right belongs to the man only. He can divorce his wife whenever he wants.
A woman does not have the right to custody of a child after divorce. The child belongs to the father.
A woman does not have the right to leave the country. This right belongs to the father until the age of 18, and after marriage, it belongs to the husband.
A woman is forced to wear a full hijab during sport competitions. Many female athletes have been fired from the national team and some of them play for the national team of other countries.
Our fathers and brothers have the right to kill us, and because (according to the Islamic Penal Code), fathers and husband are considered guardians, they will not be punished for doing so.
And recently, the ban on women eating ice-cream in public spaces was proposed, but not enforced.
In the best of circumstances, a woman’s legal rights are half of a man’s. But the important question remains: how is it fair that a being who is considered half a man when it comes to her everyday rights, can still be seen as a complete person in front of the ballot boxes? A woman is only considered a full person when we are being used to confirm the pillars of power. This is the ultimate hypocrisy. Maybe now the world will understand why women are standing on the frontline of these protests.
Perhaps you’re also wondering why men are protesting with us – I think I can tell you. The fact is that the domination over the female body (as a perfect example of a “subordinate citizen”) has also seen the state’s domination over other parts of Iranian society; including men.
After the 1979 revolution, men saw that while they may have rights towards their wives, daughters and sisters, they did not have many rights for themselves against the power of the government. They are, even now, considered “nothing” against the mighty will of those in charge.
Many men came to the conclusion that every time they took a right from a woman, they legitimised the law of domination over all of those the government views as subordinate. For regardless of gender, we are all inferior in front of the authority of the law. And anyone who questions those in power is considered an “infidel”. The punishment for being an infidel in the eyes of the law is death, whipping or prison.
In this way, fighting against the laws that prohibit women is the first step to fighting for freedom for all people in Iran.
You may also have wondered why some Iranian women continue to wear the hijab in the streets; even if we don’t believe in Islam. Well, that is easy – it is because anyone who declares that they don’t believe in Islam will either be killed or deprived of education and employment. Many who feel this way are forced to emigrate, even if we love our country.
This is what is truly at stake when you see our protests and when you watch footage of us removing the hijab. And it’s important to remember that when you see Iranian women on social media without headscarves – or at a party, while drinking and dancing – it still does not indicate our freedom or liberty. No:,every single Iranian woman who does this, does so in civil protest. We do it at tremendous risk. We do it to fight for freedom.
It is from the heart of living under such suffocation that the slogan “woman, life, freedom” was born. Maybe, after reading this text, you can imagine what a great achievement such a slogan is.
Iranian women have not been sleeping since Mahsa Amini was killed. We have seen that it is the time to announce our awakening. Many people are being killed in the streets of Iran these days. Many women who removed the hijab are in prisons. If you see Iranians in the streets of your city today, please know that we are not without a country – but we have had to flee.
This fragmented diaspora that shouts the name of its homeland in your homeland no longer wants to be treated as a half-being. Our goal is to have the right to our own bodies. This movement is the biggest feminist revolution in the world – and the world stands with us, because it knows that the outcome will be our biggest achievement, together.
