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Iran’s morality police disappear from streets after dozens killed in protests
After woman’s death in custody, Tehran weighs less heavy-handed tactics for monitoring Islamic dress code:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/2ITSIMINYTG2COQ5KYIKKJZUP4.jpg)
Iranian women shop at the Grand Bazaar in Iran's capital, Tehran on Wednesday. Photograph: Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images
Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
Wed Sep 28 2022 -
The white-and-green Guidance Patrol vans, used by Iran’s morality police to monitor and arrest women who defy the Islamic dress code, have in recent days disappeared from the streets of Tehran.
For the past decade a symbol of the Islamic republic’s crackdown on women, the vans are not even visible outside the morality police centre in central Tehran.
Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman of Kurdish ethnicity, was this month bundled into one of these vehicles. She later died in custody, triggering the biggest street protests across the country since the 2019 unrest over fuel prices. At least 41 protesters have died, according to state television. Hundreds of people have been arrested, local agencies report, including political activists and journalists.
Such is the outrage over her death that people from across the Iranian political spectrum have called for an end to the official policing of women’s clothing. “Guidance Patrol will most probably be withdrawn from the streets,” said Saeed Laylaz, a reformist analyst. “The Islamic republic will have a major setback over the hijab in practice and will have no other choice but to give more social freedom to the urban middle-class youth.”
For more than a week, young protesters, many the same age as Amini, have poured on to the streets in towns and cities across the country chanting anti-regime slogans such as “We don’t want the Islamic republic” and “Death to the dictator”
For Iranian protesters, a digital double-edged swordAfter woman’s death in custody, Tehran weighs less heavy-handed tactics for monitoring Islamic dress code
Iranian women shop at the Grand Bazaar in Iran's capital, Tehran on Wednesday. Photograph: Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images
Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
Wed Sep 28 2022 -
The white-and-green Guidance Patrol vans, used by Iran’s morality police to monitor and arrest women who defy the Islamic dress code, have in recent days disappeared from the streets of Tehran.
For the past decade a symbol of the Islamic republic’s crackdown on women, the vans are not even visible outside the morality police centre in central Tehran.
Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman of Kurdish ethnicity, was this month bundled into one of these vehicles. She later died in custody, triggering the biggest street protests across the country since the 2019 unrest over fuel prices. At least 41 protesters have died, according to state television. Hundreds of people have been arrested, local agencies report, including political activists and journalists.
Such is the outrage over her death that people from across the Iranian political spectrum have called for an end to the official policing of women’s clothing. “Guidance Patrol will most probably be withdrawn from the streets,” said Saeed Laylaz, a reformist analyst. “The Islamic republic will have a major setback over the hijab in practice and will have no other choice but to give more social freedom to the urban middle-class youth.”
For more than a week, young protesters, many the same age as Amini, have poured on to the streets in towns and cities across the country chanting anti-regime slogans such as “We don’t want the Islamic republic” and “Death to the dictator”
.:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/OFVVT7RYLHIKSYQISZXIYTTABY.jpg)
A protester holds a portrait of Mahsa Amini during a demonstration in front of the Iranian embassy in Brussels on September 23rd. Photograph: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images
University students have demonstrated on campuses and female protesters have burnt their scarves. Others faced riot police without wearing their hijab, showing little fear. While the protests have now subsided, Iranians on social media still share pictures of women killed during the protests.
For young people struggling with massive economic problems such as poverty and inequality, these patrols had become a lightning conductor for their rage, Emad Afrough, a sociologist told the state news agency IRNA.
“We have launched something which has no human, moral, logical and even legal justification,” he said. “The way a [police]man throws a woman into the car is inhuman and un-Islamic.”
The wearing of the hijab is one of the defining images of the theocratic regime. In the wake of the Islamic revolution in 1979, revolutionaries forced women to wear scarves in public. In 1983, the hijab officially became obligatory for women. The violation of this rule was punishable with up to 74 lashes. Later, jail sentences and fines replaced flogging.
Hardliners under former president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad made the police responsible for “promoting social security” in 2006 when they launched the Guidance Patrol – a label later changed to Moral Security Police, though people continue to refer to them as the Guidance Patrol. Many police officers were loath to assume this responsibility because they said it was not their job to deal with women’s hair and clothes.
The enforcement of the rules on the hijab have intensified in the past year since, with the election of Ebrahim Raisi as president, hardliners took over all arms of the state. They hoped that the stronger enforcement of the rules over the hijab could slow the modernisation of Iran, an increasingly secular society.
But, noted Jalal Rashidi Kouchi, a member of parliament, “the police have been damaged because of the Guidance Patrol” with “no results but losses for the country”.
The women they arrest have to give written commitments not to violate the law again and to attend hour-long classes on morality. Car owners also receive text messages to go to the morality police centre if there are women in their cars without scarves. Their cars are then impounded for up to two months.
It is unclear how many police officers work in Guidance Patrol but their presence, in busy squares, parks and outside metro stations, makes women feel insecure. Amini was arrested in a park shortly after she got out of a nearby metro station in central Tehran. Her family allege she was beaten up in the van. The authorities deny this and say she had a pre-existing condition.
It is unclear what comes next, though the Islamic republic is not expected to revoke the law on the hijab.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not commented on the latest protests but two months ago he defended the obligation to wear the hijab. The fact that Iranian women occupy half of university seats, he said, makes clear that the Islamic hijab is not an obstacle to women’s progress.
Conservative organisations have however called for an end to the police’s role in enforcing the rules. “How can a force in charge of order and security be in charge of holding hijab classes?” asked the Headquarters to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice.
“Religious beliefs are not created by batons, arrests and Guidance Patrol. We cannot force people into paradise,” Gholamreza Nouri Ghezeljeh, a reformist member of parliament, told Shargh daily newspaper.
But he was dismissive about the introduction of fines. “As if one can decide about paradise and hell with money,” he said. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2022
A protester holds a portrait of Mahsa Amini during a demonstration in front of the Iranian embassy in Brussels on September 23rd. Photograph: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images
University students have demonstrated on campuses and female protesters have burnt their scarves. Others faced riot police without wearing their hijab, showing little fear. While the protests have now subsided, Iranians on social media still share pictures of women killed during the protests.
For young people struggling with massive economic problems such as poverty and inequality, these patrols had become a lightning conductor for their rage, Emad Afrough, a sociologist told the state news agency IRNA.
“We have launched something which has no human, moral, logical and even legal justification,” he said. “The way a [police]man throws a woman into the car is inhuman and un-Islamic.”
The wearing of the hijab is one of the defining images of the theocratic regime. In the wake of the Islamic revolution in 1979, revolutionaries forced women to wear scarves in public. In 1983, the hijab officially became obligatory for women. The violation of this rule was punishable with up to 74 lashes. Later, jail sentences and fines replaced flogging.
Hardliners under former president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad made the police responsible for “promoting social security” in 2006 when they launched the Guidance Patrol – a label later changed to Moral Security Police, though people continue to refer to them as the Guidance Patrol. Many police officers were loath to assume this responsibility because they said it was not their job to deal with women’s hair and clothes.
The enforcement of the rules on the hijab have intensified in the past year since, with the election of Ebrahim Raisi as president, hardliners took over all arms of the state. They hoped that the stronger enforcement of the rules over the hijab could slow the modernisation of Iran, an increasingly secular society.
But, noted Jalal Rashidi Kouchi, a member of parliament, “the police have been damaged because of the Guidance Patrol” with “no results but losses for the country”.
The women they arrest have to give written commitments not to violate the law again and to attend hour-long classes on morality. Car owners also receive text messages to go to the morality police centre if there are women in their cars without scarves. Their cars are then impounded for up to two months.
It is unclear how many police officers work in Guidance Patrol but their presence, in busy squares, parks and outside metro stations, makes women feel insecure. Amini was arrested in a park shortly after she got out of a nearby metro station in central Tehran. Her family allege she was beaten up in the van. The authorities deny this and say she had a pre-existing condition.
It is unclear what comes next, though the Islamic republic is not expected to revoke the law on the hijab.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not commented on the latest protests but two months ago he defended the obligation to wear the hijab. The fact that Iranian women occupy half of university seats, he said, makes clear that the Islamic hijab is not an obstacle to women’s progress.
Conservative organisations have however called for an end to the police’s role in enforcing the rules. “How can a force in charge of order and security be in charge of holding hijab classes?” asked the Headquarters to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice.
“Religious beliefs are not created by batons, arrests and Guidance Patrol. We cannot force people into paradise,” Gholamreza Nouri Ghezeljeh, a reformist member of parliament, told Shargh daily newspaper.
But he was dismissive about the introduction of fines. “As if one can decide about paradise and hell with money,” he said. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2022
Omid Khazani and Nabih Bulos
Wed, September 28, 2022
A police motorcycle burns in Tehran during a protest on Sept. 19, 2022, over the death of a young woman in police custody. The photo was taken by an individual not employed by the Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran. (Associated Press)
Iran’s anti-government protests, which were sparked by the death of a young woman in police custody, have gone viral, and then some.
The internet is an essential tool for these demonstrators. For more than a week, millions have shared wrenching videos and vivid online images of confrontations between protesters and Iranian authorities.
They’ve topped news broadcasts and ricocheted across the globe.
The hard-line government in Tehran has deployed digital trackers and waged an all-out media war against protesters and their supporters — a strategy it used in 2019 to quash protests in just three days. Back then, authorities took control of the internet and unleashed a violent crackdown that resulted in thousands of arrests and as many as 1,500 deaths.
This time is different. The protests are well into their second week and show little sign of waning.
They began Sept. 16 after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who allegedly had violated the country's conservative dress code, and quickly tapped into wider discontent with government corruption and declining living standards. Officials say 41 people have been killed, including demonstrators and police, and 1,200 arrested, while rights groups claim much higher figures.
A key reason protesters have been able to keep the demonstrations going and maintain the world's attention: They were ready to do battle in cyberspace.
"In 2019, everybody was shocked authorities could impose a massive internet shutdown, but this time many predicted it would happen,” said Mahbod, a 27-year-old student at Tehran's Sharif University. Like others interviewed, he gave only his first name for fear of reprisals.
Hackers and tech experts worldwide have weighed in to help cyber-savvy activists organize, fight back and dominate in the digital domain — a key battleground that Iran’s leadership, more than ever, appears unable to control.
Hours after the protests began, internet monitor Netblocks reported a 33% loss in connectivity in Tehran, which later spread to other cities and provinces across Iran.
But activists quickly outmaneuvered the government, turning to Instagram and WhatsApp — some of the few social media sites still functioning — to call for demonstrations or set up meeting points. They started a hashtag under the Persian version of #Mahsa_Amini that was retweeted by some 30 million people despite the shutdown. It has reached more than 100 million users, making it the most retweeted hashtag in Twitter's history, Iranian opposition outlets say.
Then on Wednesday, the government restricted access to most social media, curtailing it sharply between 4 p.m. and approximately 1 a.m., when most protests take place. Apple and Google Play stores are blocked to prevent people from installing Virtual Private Network (VPN) apps they could use to circumvent surveillance.
Still, Mahbod’s more tech-inclined friends at university share information on which software and settings to use; it’s not uncommon for people to have four or five different programs to switch between depending on the day and area.
"The VPNs we use are much more complex than they were a few years ago," said Mehdi, a 39-year-old self-described computer geek from Tehran. "Cheap ones you need to switch every three or four days, but the more expensive ones with subscriptions work well."
Help has also come from outside Iran’s borders. The tech collective Anonymous has hacked government websites, including that of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. On Sunday, it doxxed members of parliament, releasing lawmakers’ phone numbers and other data.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department on Friday eased sanctions by authorizing technology companies to offer “secure, outside platforms and services” to Iranian users.
“As courageous Iranians take to the streets to protest the death of Mahsa Amini, the United States is redoubling its support for the free flow of information to the Iranian people,” Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo said in a statement.
“With these changes, we are helping the Iranian people be better equipped to counter the government’s efforts to surveil and censor them,” the statement added.
Hours later, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk said that the Starlink satellite system, which relies on a low-Earth-orbit satellite network to offer broadband internet, was now activated in Iran.
Tehran soon blocked access to the Starlink website, and dummy activation links containing malware were planted in the Iranian Twittersphere in an apparent attempt to lure anti-government protesters.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani on Saturday said that by loosening communication-related sanctions but keeping up others, “America is seeking to advance its own goals against Iran with hypocrisy.”
He added that “attempts at violating the Iranian sovereignty will not go unanswered.”
Iranian tech experts working abroad have also joined the fray. Kooshiar Azimian, who heads the U.S.-based biotech company 310.ai and is a former Facebook engineer, regularly gives updates on his Instagram page on the latest method for accessing internet service in Iran.
Another U.S.-based Iranian computer scientist, Moshfegh Hamedani, has posted information on Twitter on how to bypass website filtering, and excoriated programmers working with the government.
A growing chorus of government officials are threatening punishment for those who take part in the unrest.
Iran’s hard-line judicial chief, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi, said in a visit to police headquarters this week that protesters, whom he described as rioters, were “the foot soldiers of the enemies of the Islamic Republic.” Echoing previous harsh statements by President Ebrahim Raisi, he declared that those who defy authorities would be shown “no leniency.”
Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment tweeted that the government wanted to restrict internet access "so it can repress people in the dark."
The best way the United States and other Western allies can help Iranians, he wrote, is to keep the Iranian government from blocking access to the internet. Protesters' best hope of effecting change, Sadjadpour said, lies in "connecting with one another and the outside world.”
Special correspondent Khazani reported from Tehran and Times staff writer Bulos from Beirut.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Iran's nationwide demonstrations raise pressure on state
Protest in front of Iranian Embassy in Madrid
Wed, September 28, 2022
By Parisa afezi
DUBAI (Reuters) -Iranian riot police deployed in Tehran's main squares on Wednesday to confront people chanting "death to the dictator" as nationwide protests over the death of young Iranian woman Mahsa Amini in police custody piled pressure on authorities.
Amini, 22, from the northwestern Kurdish city of Saqez, was arrested on Sept. 13 in Tehran for "unsuitable attire" by the morality police who enforce the Islamic Republic's strict dress code.
She died three days later in hospital after falling into a coma, sparking the first big show of opposition on Iran's streets since authorities crushed protests against a rise in gasoline prices in 2019.
Despite a growing death toll and a crackdown by security forces using tear gas, clubs and, in some cases, live ammunition, videos posted on social media showed Iranians calling for the end of the Islamic establishment's more than four decades in power.
Protests have continued for almost two weeks, spreading to at least 80 cities and towns around Iran, from Tehran to the southeastern port of Chabahar.
"We will fight, we will die, we will take Iran back," chanted protesters in Tehran's Ekbatan neighbourhood, a video posted on Twitter showed.
A video from Chabahar showed riot police firing tear gas to disperse protesters, chanting "Death to (Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei".
State media said 41 people, including members of the police and a pro-government militia, had died during the protests. Iranian human rights groups have reported a higher toll.
Iran's state news agency IRNA reported that the country's elite Revolutionary Guards launched missile and drone attacks at militant targets in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq on Wednesday.
A senior member of Komala, an Iranian Kurdish opposition party, told Reuters several of their offices were struck and there had been casualties and material damage.
Iranian authorities have blamed armed Iranian Kurdish dissidents for igniting the unrest in the country, particularly in the northwest where most of Iran's over 10 million Kurds live.
Videos posted on activist Twitter account 1500tasvir, with 145,000 followers, showed protesters gathering at Shiraz Medical School to protest against Amini's death.
Early Wednesday, a video showed protesters in Tehran chanting "Mullahs get lost!" "Death to the dictator!" and "Death to the leader because of all these years of crime!". Reuters could not verify the authenticity of videos on social media.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has called on Iran's clerical rulers to "fully respect the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, peaceful assembly and association".
In a statement from the U.N. human rights office on Tuesday, spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said that reports indicated "hundreds have also been arrested, including human rights defenders, lawyers, civil society activists and at least 18 journalists".
Amini's death has drawn widespread international condemnation while Iran has blamed "thugs" linked to "foreign enemies" for the unrest. Tehran has accused the United States and some European countries of using the unrest to try to destabilise the Islamic Republic.
(Additional reporting by Ali Sultan in Sulaimaniya; Writing by Parisa Hafezi and Michael Georgy, Editing by William Maclean)
Protest in front of Iranian Embassy in Madrid
Wed, September 28, 2022
By Parisa afezi
DUBAI (Reuters) -Iranian riot police deployed in Tehran's main squares on Wednesday to confront people chanting "death to the dictator" as nationwide protests over the death of young Iranian woman Mahsa Amini in police custody piled pressure on authorities.
Amini, 22, from the northwestern Kurdish city of Saqez, was arrested on Sept. 13 in Tehran for "unsuitable attire" by the morality police who enforce the Islamic Republic's strict dress code.
She died three days later in hospital after falling into a coma, sparking the first big show of opposition on Iran's streets since authorities crushed protests against a rise in gasoline prices in 2019.
Despite a growing death toll and a crackdown by security forces using tear gas, clubs and, in some cases, live ammunition, videos posted on social media showed Iranians calling for the end of the Islamic establishment's more than four decades in power.
Protests have continued for almost two weeks, spreading to at least 80 cities and towns around Iran, from Tehran to the southeastern port of Chabahar.
"We will fight, we will die, we will take Iran back," chanted protesters in Tehran's Ekbatan neighbourhood, a video posted on Twitter showed.
A video from Chabahar showed riot police firing tear gas to disperse protesters, chanting "Death to (Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei".
State media said 41 people, including members of the police and a pro-government militia, had died during the protests. Iranian human rights groups have reported a higher toll.
Iran's state news agency IRNA reported that the country's elite Revolutionary Guards launched missile and drone attacks at militant targets in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq on Wednesday.
A senior member of Komala, an Iranian Kurdish opposition party, told Reuters several of their offices were struck and there had been casualties and material damage.
Iranian authorities have blamed armed Iranian Kurdish dissidents for igniting the unrest in the country, particularly in the northwest where most of Iran's over 10 million Kurds live.
Videos posted on activist Twitter account 1500tasvir, with 145,000 followers, showed protesters gathering at Shiraz Medical School to protest against Amini's death.
Early Wednesday, a video showed protesters in Tehran chanting "Mullahs get lost!" "Death to the dictator!" and "Death to the leader because of all these years of crime!". Reuters could not verify the authenticity of videos on social media.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has called on Iran's clerical rulers to "fully respect the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, peaceful assembly and association".
In a statement from the U.N. human rights office on Tuesday, spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said that reports indicated "hundreds have also been arrested, including human rights defenders, lawyers, civil society activists and at least 18 journalists".
Amini's death has drawn widespread international condemnation while Iran has blamed "thugs" linked to "foreign enemies" for the unrest. Tehran has accused the United States and some European countries of using the unrest to try to destabilise the Islamic Republic.
(Additional reporting by Ali Sultan in Sulaimaniya; Writing by Parisa Hafezi and Michael Georgy, Editing by William Maclean)
Iran's anti-veil protests draw on long history of resistance
- Iranian women take part during the celebrations to mark the 2,500 anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire, young people in costume participate in parade for visiting dignitaries at Persepolis Iran, October 13, 1971.
A young woman climbs to the top of a car in the middle of Mashhad, a conservative Iranian city famed for its Islamic shrines. She takes off her headscarf and starts chanting, “Death to the dictator!” Protesters nearby join in and cars honk in support.
For many Iranian women, it’s an image that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago, said Fatemeh Shams, who grew up in Mashhad.
“When you see Mashhad women coming to the streets and burning their veils publicly, this is really a revolutionary change. Iranian women are putting an end to a veiled society and the compulsory veil,” she said.
Iran has seen multiple eruptions of protests over the past years, many of them fueled by anger over economic difficulties. But the new wave is showing fury against something at the heart of the identity of Iran’s cleric-led state: the compulsory veil.
Iran’s Islamic Republic requires women to cover up in public, including wearing a “hijab” or headscarf that is supposed to completely hide the hair. Many Iranian women, especially in major cities, have long played a game of cat-and-mouse with authorities, with younger generations wearing loose scarves and outfits that push the boundaries of conservative dress.
That game can end in tragedy. A 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, was arrested by morality police in the capital Tehran and died in custody. Her death has sparked nearly two weeks of widespread unrest that has reached across Iran’s provinces and brought students, middle-class professionals and working-class men and women into the streets.
Iranian state TV has suggested that at least 41 protesters and police have been killed. An Associated Press count of official statements by authorities tallied at least 13 dead, with more than 1,400 demonstrators arrested.
A young woman in Tehran, who said she has continually participated in the past week’s protests in the capital city, said the violent response of security forces had largely reduced the size of demonstrations.
“People still are coming to the streets to find one meter of space to shout their rage but they are immediately and violently chased, beaten and taken into custody, so they try to mobilize in four- to five-person groups and once they find an opportunity they run together and start to demonstrate,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“The most important protest they (Iranian women) are doing right now is taking off their scarves and burning them,” she added. “This is a women’s movement first of all, and men are supporting them in the backline.”
A writer and rights activist since her student days at Tehran University, Shams participated in the mass anti-government protests of 2009 before having to flee Iran.
But this time is different, she said.
Waves of violent repression against protests in the past 13 years “have disillusioned the traditional classes of society” that once were the backbone of the Islamic Republic, said Shams, who now lives in the United States.
The fact that there have been protests in conservative cities like Mashhad or Qom — the historic center of Iran’s clergy — is unprecedented, she said.
“Every morning I wake up and I think, is this actually happening? Women making bonfires with veils?”
Modern Iranian history has been full of unexpected twists and turns.
Iranian women who grew up before the overthrow of the monarchy in 1979 remember a country where women were largely free to choose how they dressed.
People of all stripes, from leftists to religious hardliners, participated in the revolution that toppled the shah. But in the end, it was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his followers who ended up seizing power and creating a Shiite cleric-led Islamic state.
On March 7, 1979, Khomeini announced that all women must wear hijab. The very next day — International Women’s Day — tens of thousands of unveiled women marched in protest.
“It was really the first counter-revolutionary movement,” said Susan Maybud, who participated in those marches and was then working as a news assistant with the foreign press. “It wasn’t just about the hijab, because we knew what was next, taking away women’s rights.” She didn’t even own a hijab at the time, she recalled.
“What you’re seeing today is not something that just happened. There’s been a long history of women protesting and defying authority” in Iran.
The hijab has been “the lightning rod of opposition,” explained Roham Alvandi, an Iranian historian and associate professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
“It represents the ability of the Islamic Republic to reach down and control the most private and intimate aspects of Iranians’ lives,” he said.
A century or more ago, strict veiling was largely limited to Iran’s upper classes. Most women were in rural areas and worked, “so hijab wasn’t exactly possible” for them, said Esha Momeni, an Iranian activist and scholar affiliated with UCLA’s Gender Studies Department.
Many women wore a “roosari” or casual headscarf that was “part of traditional clothing rather than having a very religious meaning to it.”
Throughout the late 19th century, women were front-and-center in street protests, she said. In Iran’s first democratic uprising of 1905, many towns and cities formed local women’s rights committees.
This was followed by a period of top-down secularizing reforms under the military officer-turned-king Reza Shah, who banned the wearing of the veil in public in the 1930s.
During the Islamic Revolution, women’s hijab became an important political symbol of the country “entering this new Islamic era,” Momeni said. Growing up in Tehran, she remembers “living between two worlds” where family and friends didn’t wear the veil at private gatherings but feared harassment or arrest by police or pro-government militias in public.
In 2008, Momeni was arrested and kept in solitary confinement for a month at Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, after working on a documentary about women activists and the 1 Million Signatures Campaign that aimed to reform discriminatory laws against women. She was later released and joined the 2009 “Green Movement” protests.
Like Shams, she sees today’s wave of protests as shaking the foundations of the Islamic Republic.
“People are done with the hope of internal reform. People not wanting hijab is a sign of them wanting the system to change fundamentally,” Momeni said.
The 2009 protests were led by Iran’s “reformist” movement which called for a gradual opening-up of Iranian society. But none of Iran’s political parties — even the most progressive, reformist-led ones — supported abolishing the compulsory veil.
Shams, who grew up in relatively religious family and sometimes wore hijab, recounted how during the 2009 protests, she renounced the headscarf publicly. She found herself under attack by pro-government media, but also shunned by figures in the reform movement — and by her then-husband’s family.
“The major reason for our divorce was compulsory hijab,” she said.
As Iran has been besieged by U.S. sanctions and several waves of protests fueled by economic grievances, the leadership has grown insular and uncompromising.
In the 2021 presidential election, all serious contenders were disqualified to allow Ebrahim Raisi, a protégé of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, to take the presidency despite record low voter turnout.
The death of Mahsa Amini, who hailed from a relatively impoverished Kurdish area, has galvanized anger over forms of ethnic and social — as well as gender — discrimination, Shams said.
From Tehran’s universities to far-flung Kurdish towns, men and women protesters have chanted, “Whoever kills our sister, we will kill them.”
Shams says Iran’s rulers have backed themselves into a corner, where they fear yielding on the veil could endanger the 44-year-old Islamic Republic.
“There is no way back, at this point. If the Islamic Republic wants to stay in power, they have to abolish compulsory veiling, but in order to do that they have to transform their political ideology,” she said. “And the Islamic government is not ready for that change.”
- Iranian women take part during the celebrations to mark the 2,500 anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire, young people in costume participate in parade for visiting dignitaries at Persepolis Iran, October 13, 1971.
Iran's Islamic Republic requires women to cover up in public. But many Iranian women have long played a game of cat-and-mouse with authorities as a younger generation wears their veils more loosely or skirts requirements for conservative dress. (AP
AMIR-HUSSEIN RADJY
Wed, September 28, 2022
AMIR-HUSSEIN RADJY
Wed, September 28, 2022
A young woman climbs to the top of a car in the middle of Mashhad, a conservative Iranian city famed for its Islamic shrines. She takes off her headscarf and starts chanting, “Death to the dictator!” Protesters nearby join in and cars honk in support.
For many Iranian women, it’s an image that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago, said Fatemeh Shams, who grew up in Mashhad.
“When you see Mashhad women coming to the streets and burning their veils publicly, this is really a revolutionary change. Iranian women are putting an end to a veiled society and the compulsory veil,” she said.
Iran has seen multiple eruptions of protests over the past years, many of them fueled by anger over economic difficulties. But the new wave is showing fury against something at the heart of the identity of Iran’s cleric-led state: the compulsory veil.
Iran’s Islamic Republic requires women to cover up in public, including wearing a “hijab” or headscarf that is supposed to completely hide the hair. Many Iranian women, especially in major cities, have long played a game of cat-and-mouse with authorities, with younger generations wearing loose scarves and outfits that push the boundaries of conservative dress.
That game can end in tragedy. A 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, was arrested by morality police in the capital Tehran and died in custody. Her death has sparked nearly two weeks of widespread unrest that has reached across Iran’s provinces and brought students, middle-class professionals and working-class men and women into the streets.
Iranian state TV has suggested that at least 41 protesters and police have been killed. An Associated Press count of official statements by authorities tallied at least 13 dead, with more than 1,400 demonstrators arrested.
A young woman in Tehran, who said she has continually participated in the past week’s protests in the capital city, said the violent response of security forces had largely reduced the size of demonstrations.
“People still are coming to the streets to find one meter of space to shout their rage but they are immediately and violently chased, beaten and taken into custody, so they try to mobilize in four- to five-person groups and once they find an opportunity they run together and start to demonstrate,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“The most important protest they (Iranian women) are doing right now is taking off their scarves and burning them,” she added. “This is a women’s movement first of all, and men are supporting them in the backline.”
A writer and rights activist since her student days at Tehran University, Shams participated in the mass anti-government protests of 2009 before having to flee Iran.
But this time is different, she said.
Waves of violent repression against protests in the past 13 years “have disillusioned the traditional classes of society” that once were the backbone of the Islamic Republic, said Shams, who now lives in the United States.
The fact that there have been protests in conservative cities like Mashhad or Qom — the historic center of Iran’s clergy — is unprecedented, she said.
“Every morning I wake up and I think, is this actually happening? Women making bonfires with veils?”
Modern Iranian history has been full of unexpected twists and turns.
Iranian women who grew up before the overthrow of the monarchy in 1979 remember a country where women were largely free to choose how they dressed.
People of all stripes, from leftists to religious hardliners, participated in the revolution that toppled the shah. But in the end, it was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his followers who ended up seizing power and creating a Shiite cleric-led Islamic state.
On March 7, 1979, Khomeini announced that all women must wear hijab. The very next day — International Women’s Day — tens of thousands of unveiled women marched in protest.
“It was really the first counter-revolutionary movement,” said Susan Maybud, who participated in those marches and was then working as a news assistant with the foreign press. “It wasn’t just about the hijab, because we knew what was next, taking away women’s rights.” She didn’t even own a hijab at the time, she recalled.
“What you’re seeing today is not something that just happened. There’s been a long history of women protesting and defying authority” in Iran.
The hijab has been “the lightning rod of opposition,” explained Roham Alvandi, an Iranian historian and associate professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
“It represents the ability of the Islamic Republic to reach down and control the most private and intimate aspects of Iranians’ lives,” he said.
A century or more ago, strict veiling was largely limited to Iran’s upper classes. Most women were in rural areas and worked, “so hijab wasn’t exactly possible” for them, said Esha Momeni, an Iranian activist and scholar affiliated with UCLA’s Gender Studies Department.
Many women wore a “roosari” or casual headscarf that was “part of traditional clothing rather than having a very religious meaning to it.”
Throughout the late 19th century, women were front-and-center in street protests, she said. In Iran’s first democratic uprising of 1905, many towns and cities formed local women’s rights committees.
This was followed by a period of top-down secularizing reforms under the military officer-turned-king Reza Shah, who banned the wearing of the veil in public in the 1930s.
During the Islamic Revolution, women’s hijab became an important political symbol of the country “entering this new Islamic era,” Momeni said. Growing up in Tehran, she remembers “living between two worlds” where family and friends didn’t wear the veil at private gatherings but feared harassment or arrest by police or pro-government militias in public.
In 2008, Momeni was arrested and kept in solitary confinement for a month at Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, after working on a documentary about women activists and the 1 Million Signatures Campaign that aimed to reform discriminatory laws against women. She was later released and joined the 2009 “Green Movement” protests.
Like Shams, she sees today’s wave of protests as shaking the foundations of the Islamic Republic.
“People are done with the hope of internal reform. People not wanting hijab is a sign of them wanting the system to change fundamentally,” Momeni said.
The 2009 protests were led by Iran’s “reformist” movement which called for a gradual opening-up of Iranian society. But none of Iran’s political parties — even the most progressive, reformist-led ones — supported abolishing the compulsory veil.
Shams, who grew up in relatively religious family and sometimes wore hijab, recounted how during the 2009 protests, she renounced the headscarf publicly. She found herself under attack by pro-government media, but also shunned by figures in the reform movement — and by her then-husband’s family.
“The major reason for our divorce was compulsory hijab,” she said.
As Iran has been besieged by U.S. sanctions and several waves of protests fueled by economic grievances, the leadership has grown insular and uncompromising.
In the 2021 presidential election, all serious contenders were disqualified to allow Ebrahim Raisi, a protégé of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, to take the presidency despite record low voter turnout.
The death of Mahsa Amini, who hailed from a relatively impoverished Kurdish area, has galvanized anger over forms of ethnic and social — as well as gender — discrimination, Shams said.
From Tehran’s universities to far-flung Kurdish towns, men and women protesters have chanted, “Whoever kills our sister, we will kill them.”
Shams says Iran’s rulers have backed themselves into a corner, where they fear yielding on the veil could endanger the 44-year-old Islamic Republic.
“There is no way back, at this point. If the Islamic Republic wants to stay in power, they have to abolish compulsory veiling, but in order to do that they have to transform their political ideology,” she said. “And the Islamic government is not ready for that change.”
Iran security forces clash with protesters over Amini's death
A newspaper with a cover picture of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by Iranian morality police, is seen in Tehran
People demonstrate against the Islamic regime of Iran in New York City
Demonstrators scuffle with riot police, during a protest following the death of Mahsa Amini, outside the Iranian Embassy, in Athens
A woman holds a placard during a protest following the death of Mahsa Amini in Iran, outside the Iranian Embassy in Nicosia,
Protests in Malta following the death of Mahsa Amini, in Valletta
A newspaper with a cover picture of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by Iranian morality police, is seen in Tehran
Tue, 27 September 2022
By Parisa Hafezi
DUBAI (Reuters) -Iranian riot police and security forces clashed with demonstrators in dozens of cities on Tuesday, state media and social media said, as protests raged on over the death of young Iranian woman Mahsa Amini in police custody.
Amini, 22, from the northwestern Kurdish city of Saqez, was arrested on Sept. 13 in Tehran for "unsuitable attire" by the morality police who enforce the Islamic Republic's strict dress code.
She died three days later in hospital after falling into a coma, sparking the first big show of opposition on Iran's streets since authorities crushed protests against a rise in gasoline prices in 2019.
Despite a growing death toll and a fierce crackdown by security forces using tear gas, clubs and, in some cases, live ammunition, videos posted on social media showed protesters calling for the fall of the clerical establishment while clashing with security forces in Tehran, Tabriz, Karaj, Qom, Yazd and many other Iranian cities.
Rights group Amnesty International said on Twitter that Iran's security forces have responded to the protests with "unlawful force, including by using live ammunition, birdshot and other metal pellets, killing dozens of people and injuring hundreds of others".
State media branded the protesters "hypocrites, rioters, thugs and seditionists", while state television said police clashed with "rioters" in some cities.
Videos posted on social media from inside Iran showed protesters chanting, "Woman, Life, Liberty", while women waved and burnt their veils.
Videos on Twitter showed protesters chanting "Death to the dictator", a reference to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In the Kurdish cities of Sanandaj and Sardasht, riot police fired at protesters, Twitter videos showed.
"I will kill those who killed my sister," chanted protesters in one of the videos from Tehran, while activist Twitter account 1500tasvir said: "The streets have become battlefields".
Further videos on social media showed protests continuing in dozens of cities after nightfall on Tuesday. A video widely shared on social media showed protests in Chabahar city in restive southeast Iran, with demonstrators torching government offices as gun shots could be heard.
"The crowed is upset over Mahsa Amini's death and allegations that a policeman has raped a teenage girl from the Baluch ethnic minority," a voice in video said. Reuters could not authenticate the footage.
The videos on social media could not be verified by Reuters.
State media also reported the arrest of women’s rights activist Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, the daughter of a former Iranian president and founder of the Islamic Republic, for "inciting riots" in Tehran.
To make it difficult for protesters to post videos on social media, authorities have restricted internet access in several provinces, according to Internet blockage observatory NetBlocks on Twitter.
GROWING SUPPORT
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Iran's clerical rulers to "fully respect the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, peaceful assembly and association".
In a statement, spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said that reports indicated "hundreds have also been arrested, including human rights defenders, lawyers, civil society activists and at least 18 journalists".
Officials said 41 people, including members of the police and a pro-government militia, had died during the protests. But Iranian human rights groups have reported a higher toll.
The Iranian human rights group Hengaw said 18 people had been killed, 898 injured and over 1,000 Kurdish protesters arrested in the last 10 days, but estimated that the real figures were higher.
"Between Monday and Friday, more than 70 women have been arrested in Iran's Kurdistan. ... At least four of them are under age 18," Hengaw said on Tuesday.
Iran's judiciary has set up special courts to try "rioters", according to state media.
Over 300 Iranian Christians issued a statement supporting the nationwide protests.
Social media posts, along with some activists, have called for a nationwide strike. Several university teachers, celebrities and prominent soccer players have backed the protests while students in several universities have refused to participate in classes.
Meanwhile, Amini's death has drawn widespread international condemnation while Iran has blamed "thugs" linked to "foreign enemies" for the unrest. Tehran has accused the United States and some European countries of using the unrest to try to destabilise the Islamic Republic.
(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi; Additional reporting by Emma Farge in Geneva; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Jonathan Oatis and Josie Kao)
By Parisa Hafezi
DUBAI (Reuters) -Iranian riot police and security forces clashed with demonstrators in dozens of cities on Tuesday, state media and social media said, as protests raged on over the death of young Iranian woman Mahsa Amini in police custody.
Amini, 22, from the northwestern Kurdish city of Saqez, was arrested on Sept. 13 in Tehran for "unsuitable attire" by the morality police who enforce the Islamic Republic's strict dress code.
She died three days later in hospital after falling into a coma, sparking the first big show of opposition on Iran's streets since authorities crushed protests against a rise in gasoline prices in 2019.
Despite a growing death toll and a fierce crackdown by security forces using tear gas, clubs and, in some cases, live ammunition, videos posted on social media showed protesters calling for the fall of the clerical establishment while clashing with security forces in Tehran, Tabriz, Karaj, Qom, Yazd and many other Iranian cities.
Rights group Amnesty International said on Twitter that Iran's security forces have responded to the protests with "unlawful force, including by using live ammunition, birdshot and other metal pellets, killing dozens of people and injuring hundreds of others".
State media branded the protesters "hypocrites, rioters, thugs and seditionists", while state television said police clashed with "rioters" in some cities.
Videos posted on social media from inside Iran showed protesters chanting, "Woman, Life, Liberty", while women waved and burnt their veils.
Videos on Twitter showed protesters chanting "Death to the dictator", a reference to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In the Kurdish cities of Sanandaj and Sardasht, riot police fired at protesters, Twitter videos showed.
"I will kill those who killed my sister," chanted protesters in one of the videos from Tehran, while activist Twitter account 1500tasvir said: "The streets have become battlefields".
Further videos on social media showed protests continuing in dozens of cities after nightfall on Tuesday. A video widely shared on social media showed protests in Chabahar city in restive southeast Iran, with demonstrators torching government offices as gun shots could be heard.
"The crowed is upset over Mahsa Amini's death and allegations that a policeman has raped a teenage girl from the Baluch ethnic minority," a voice in video said. Reuters could not authenticate the footage.
The videos on social media could not be verified by Reuters.
State media also reported the arrest of women’s rights activist Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, the daughter of a former Iranian president and founder of the Islamic Republic, for "inciting riots" in Tehran.
To make it difficult for protesters to post videos on social media, authorities have restricted internet access in several provinces, according to Internet blockage observatory NetBlocks on Twitter.
GROWING SUPPORT
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Iran's clerical rulers to "fully respect the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, peaceful assembly and association".
In a statement, spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said that reports indicated "hundreds have also been arrested, including human rights defenders, lawyers, civil society activists and at least 18 journalists".
Officials said 41 people, including members of the police and a pro-government militia, had died during the protests. But Iranian human rights groups have reported a higher toll.
The Iranian human rights group Hengaw said 18 people had been killed, 898 injured and over 1,000 Kurdish protesters arrested in the last 10 days, but estimated that the real figures were higher.
"Between Monday and Friday, more than 70 women have been arrested in Iran's Kurdistan. ... At least four of them are under age 18," Hengaw said on Tuesday.
Iran's judiciary has set up special courts to try "rioters", according to state media.
Over 300 Iranian Christians issued a statement supporting the nationwide protests.
Social media posts, along with some activists, have called for a nationwide strike. Several university teachers, celebrities and prominent soccer players have backed the protests while students in several universities have refused to participate in classes.
Meanwhile, Amini's death has drawn widespread international condemnation while Iran has blamed "thugs" linked to "foreign enemies" for the unrest. Tehran has accused the United States and some European countries of using the unrest to try to destabilise the Islamic Republic.
(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi; Additional reporting by Emma Farge in Geneva; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Jonathan Oatis and Josie Kao)
People demonstrate against the Islamic regime of Iran in New York City
Demonstrators scuffle with riot police, during a protest following the death of Mahsa Amini, outside the Iranian Embassy, in Athens
A woman holds a placard during a protest following the death of Mahsa Amini in Iran, outside the Iranian Embassy in Nicosia,
Protests in Malta following the death of Mahsa Amini, in Valletta
"She was tortured": Mahsa Amini's
family speaks out amid Iran protests
The family of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in the custody of Iran's morality police, is speaking out as the anti-government protests sparked by her death grow louder.
As the country awaits a final coroner's report, Amini's father said she was beaten by the morality police, the enforcers of Iran's strict dress code. Amini's head covering was reportedly too loose when she was taken into custody.
Her cousin, Erfan Mortezaei, who lives in self-exile in Iraq, believes she was tortured.
"She was tortured, according to eyewitnesses," he claimed. "She was tortured in the van after her arrest, then tortured at the police station for half an hour, then hit on her head and she collapsed."
Thousands paid respects at Amini's burial in western Iran.
Iran's government is accusing the West, especially the United States, of fueling protester fury. The Foreign Ministry said Tehran will respond to "American violations of its sovereignty."
In response to Amini's death, protesters have stoned images of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
"The old dictator is in his last days," Mortezaei said when asked what he would tell Khamenei.
The riots have been the biggest to rock Iran since 2019. Women, raging against rigid Iranian law, are illegally removing their head coverings and burning them. Men are joining them to protest a regime they all denounce as repressive.
At least 75 people have been killed, according to watchdog Iran Human Rights, with that number expected to rise.
12 arrested after clashes outside Iranian Embassy in London
Two women are asked to leave the area after stopping to clash with protesters outside Kilburn Islamic Centre in London, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022. The protesters were demonstrating against the death of Iranian Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, who died in Iran while in police custody, was arrested by Iran's morality police for allegedly violating its strictly-enforced dress code.
Mon, September 26, 2022
LONDON (AP) — British police said Monday that 12 people were arrested and at least five police officers were seriously injured after violent disorder broke out during protests outside the Iranian Embassy in London.
Large crowds had gathered all week outside the compound to protest the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in custody in Iran after she was detained by the country's morality police.
The Metropolitan Police force said most protesters had been peaceful, but on Sunday a group of activists sought to confront police and other protesters with different views.
Police said bottles and other items were thrown at officers trying to protect the embassy building, and that protesters also targeted the nearby Islamic Center of England. At least five officers were hospitalized with injuries including broken bones, police said.
Amini was arrested for allegedly breaking headscarf rules and died on Sept. 16. The Iranian police said she died of a heart attack and wasn't mistreated, but her family has cast doubt on that account. The London clashes came as protests over her death spread across dozens of Iranian cities, towns and villages.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Sunday it summoned Britain’s ambassador to protest what it described as a hostile atmosphere created by London-based Farsi language media outlets. The ministry alleged the news outlets have provoked disturbances and the spread of riots in Iran at the top of their programs.
LONDON (AP) — British police said Monday that 12 people were arrested and at least five police officers were seriously injured after violent disorder broke out during protests outside the Iranian Embassy in London.
Large crowds had gathered all week outside the compound to protest the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in custody in Iran after she was detained by the country's morality police.
The Metropolitan Police force said most protesters had been peaceful, but on Sunday a group of activists sought to confront police and other protesters with different views.
Police said bottles and other items were thrown at officers trying to protect the embassy building, and that protesters also targeted the nearby Islamic Center of England. At least five officers were hospitalized with injuries including broken bones, police said.
Amini was arrested for allegedly breaking headscarf rules and died on Sept. 16. The Iranian police said she died of a heart attack and wasn't mistreated, but her family has cast doubt on that account. The London clashes came as protests over her death spread across dozens of Iranian cities, towns and villages.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Sunday it summoned Britain’s ambassador to protest what it described as a hostile atmosphere created by London-based Farsi language media outlets. The ministry alleged the news outlets have provoked disturbances and the spread of riots in Iran at the top of their programs.
Two women are asked to leave the area after stopping to clash with protesters outside Kilburn Islamic Centre in London, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022. The protesters were demonstrating against the death of Iranian Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, who died in Iran while in police custody, was arrested by Iran's morality police for allegedly violating its strictly-enforced dress code.
(David Parry/PA via AP)
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