Recent protests in Iran have spread around the world, including Aotearoa. Here’s what’s going on.
On September 13, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman was traveling to the capital city of Tehran to visit relatives when she was arrested by the so-called morality police for “improperly” wearing her mandatory hijab. In the police van she was beaten so severely that she went into a coma. Three days later she died from her horrific injuries.
Amini’s death has ignited protests and condemnation from Iranians around the country denouncing her death and the regime that imposed it. A regime that has been ruthlessly dictating and oppressing its people, particularly women and other minorities, for over 40 years.
The protests have spread all over the country and the government is fighting back the only way it knows how: through brutality and violence. Over 41 people have already been killed, including children, and numerous arrested. As images of the unrest went global online, the government literally shut down the internet. Like other totalitarian states, Iran has very strict censorship rules including controlling what its people can view on the internet. Many Iranians use a VPN or other methods to access banned sites including Instagram and Whatsapp, which were also used to organise protests. Elon Musk has even chimed in noting that he’ll provide his satellite Starlink to provide internet in the country (though currently, its hardware has a hefty pricetag).
Global protests soon followed – including here in Aotearoa. It was heartening to see so many Iranians in the diaspora and non-Iranians standing in solidarity and vocalising their outrage and emotional denouncements of a regime that many had to escape from. My own extended family was there, some who still held the raw memories of the Revolution and regime change that upended their lives and drove them to leave their homeland for places unknown. Amid the chants for justice for Amini and calls for regime change, a few people took to cutting or shaving their hair off, in solidarity with the women in Iran who are bravely removing their hijabs and even burning them. For it is women who are leading this movement.
Iran is no stranger to demonstrations – after all, it was the coalition of various people who protested the removal of the previous monarch which led to the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the formation of the Islamic Republic. However, unlike more recent protests such as the 2009 Green Movement that bitterly disputed the re-election of a hardline president, this protest involves Iranians from various economical and geographical backgrounds as well as different ethnic groups.
The timing is also evident due to worsening living conditions brought on by factors such as inflation and lack of resources like medication (much of which is caused by the sanctions imposed on the country by the US) and the shambolic and catastrophic response to the pandemic by the government (Iran was one of the countries worst hit by the virus, particularly in its early days).
So why should we in New Zealand care what is happening in a country seemingly so far away? For the same reason we care about Black Lives Matter in the US and about the war in Ukraine. Because visible solidarity is vital.
We can help organise and partake in protests and rallies. We can sign and share this petition by Amnesty International asking foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta to do what she can to push the UN to investigate and ensure accountability. We can donate to various human rights causes that have been taking action such, as Amnesty and Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran. As actor Nazanin Boniadi notes in her post, we can also help get the Iranian people access to the internet through apps like Tor’s Project Snowflake, which can bypass censorship or even Google’s Outline VPN where one can set up a VPN server and share that access with those in Iran.
At the very least, we should engage and spread the word. Since the protests erupted, Iranians inside Iran rely on us on the outside to spread their message and their images through social media videos and hashtags such as #Mahsa_Amini and #iranprotests2022. International condemnation has come (somewhat, although President Raisi was still making speeches, shaking hands and spending large at the UN just the other day) but more importantly it shows those on the frontline, those risking their lives for the cause, that they have our support at a time where their own government does not. They are everyday people just like us, who are fighting for the very rights we all deserve. If the pandemic (and grim dystopic films) have taught us anything it is the value of a shared humanity and how we all share a piece of it.
Iran is renowned for its poetry, particularly from Ancient Persia where the poet Sa’adi lived. His words sit perfectly inscribed on a hand-made carpet installed at the United Nations in NYC:
Human beings are body parts of each other,
In creation they are indeed of one essence.
If a body part is afflicted with pain,
Other body parts uneasy will remain.
If you have no sympathy for human pain,
The name of human you shall not retain.