The hijab is the ayatollahs' Achilles heel

Forough Tamimi was there when women took to the streets in 1979 to demonstrate against the compulsory hijab and other women-unfriendly laws and regulations. At the time, women received little support. Male opposition members thought it was a luxury issue. Now it is different. The current revolution is secular and feminist. ‘If the compulsory hijab is abolished, the Iranian regime will disintegrate. What the Berlin Wall was to the GDR, the hijab is to the ayatollahs.’

I heard Yalda's voice on Instagram and it gave me goosebumps. Yalda Agha Fazli was a young woman aged 19. She said, “Listen, I am saying I have never experienced anything like this in my entire life. In the last 13 days, I was constantly beaten up, which made me lose my voice, because I was just screaming and shrieking. But I never said anything to them, not that I am sorry or that I did anything wrong.”

Yalda was arrested during a mass protest in Tehran in the first week of November 2022 and was detained for a fortnight. Apparently, she committed suicide a week after her release. Was she murdered or was it suicide? Her soul was already dead when she was tortured.

Yalda is not the only one. Nika Shakarami was 16 years old when she was abducted, tortured and murdered in October on state during a protest. The Iranian government claims Nika fell down from a tall building. But her family can prove she was murdered by the secret service. Nika, Yalda and many others died because they wanted to be free people.

Secular and feminist

Iranians are determined to oust the Islamic regime from their country's political arena. For two and a half months, young women and men with empty hands have been chanting ‘woman, life and freedom’. Their peaceful protests were put down by the police and by ununiformed secret agents. Many protesters were shot dead. But their struggle continues. Iranian women play an important role in this new revolution. Young women are demonstrating in large numbers against discriminatory religious laws and the ayatollahs' regime. The new protest movement is mainly secular and feminist.

Enemy of God

More and more Iranians are shouting ‘death to the Islamic Republic’ as they witness how a Sharia-based constitution has made their daily lives impossible for 43 years. Of Iranians who disapprove of the Islamic regime, 76 per cent do not consider religion a defining factor in their lives.
At least 14,000 people have been arrested and detained since the protests began. More than 400 people, including adolescents and small children, were killed in the streets by police. CNN investigation shows how girls and boys are tortured and raped in prisons as a form of punishment. Several protesters were sentenced to death.

Moreover, the Iranian government has recently arrested a large group of journalists, artists and human rights activists. No one knows what awaits them. Toomaj Salehi, a well-known rapper, was detained and tortured. The Islamic court called him an ‘apostate and enemy of God’, a charge punishable by death.

Shout it loud, her name was Mahsa  

It began in September 2022 with the arrest of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman from Kurdistan province. She was arrested by morality police in Tehran and beaten up for wearing a loose headscarf. Mahsa was in a coma for three days before she died on 16 September. Iranian authorities deny that Mahsa was murdered. Even after her family published Mahsa's medical records, the culprit responsible has not been apprehended.

This terrible murder caused a huge public shock. Outraged Iranian youths expressed their discontent on Twitter, where the hashtag #Mahsa was used 275 million times in a short time, a record for the platform. The reactions on Twitter were the spark for the start of massive protests. These spread to more than 150 cities in Iran in a few weeks and are still ongoing. The new feminist political movement is supported worldwide by known and unknown women and men. All are shouting ‘Woman, life and freedom’. A woman's cutting off a tuft of hair, a Kurdish mourning tradition, has become a symbol of solidarity with Iranian women.

Meanwhile, the world is witnessing a massive solidarity movement within the Iranian diaspora. Thousands of Iranians gathered on the streets of Washington, Paris, London, Rome, Amsterdam and other cities. The astonishing solidarity of 100,000 Iranians who came from EU countries to Berlin for a protest march on 22 October shook up EU countries. The European Parliament was forced to reconsider relations with Iran with additional sanctions.

43 years of oppression and discrimination against women  

For 40 years since the 1979 revolution, thousands of political opponents and religious and ethnic minorities have been sent to prison, tortured or executed. During this period, citizens in Iran were not only deprived of their political, social and individual freedoms, but also made poorer and more vulnerable by government corruption and the unfair distribution of wealth.
In UN development indicator lists, Iran is often at the very bottom. This is despite the fact that Iran has vast reserves of oil, gas and other natural resources. Currently, more than 20 million Iranians live below the poverty line.

Many of my contemporaries deeply regret having traded the shah, in fact a modern dictator, for the medieval regime of the ayatollahs in 1979. Frankly, I think this is an understandable thought. Iranian women had far more rights and freedoms before the Islamic revolution.

Women of my generation 

I look at the photos of Mahsa, Yalda and Nika, and remember how I had fallen into a mudslide during a student protest in 1979 after a police attack on the street. Eventually, a couple helped me and hid me in their bathroom until it was safe again on the street and I could go home. Like the current generation, my generation also fought for political freedom on the streets, but our efforts and sacrifices unfortunately did not lead to greater freedom and equality in society.

Under the Islamic regime, women lost all their previously acquired rights. I remember that on 8 March 1979, the first major protest by women was organised against the compulsory hijab. On that day, 30,000 women gathered in the streets of Tehran. Even then, they were beaten and humiliated during protests.

During that period, women's struggles were not defended or supported by any political party or opposition group. On the contrary, they were criticised by the opposition because in their eyes it was a luxury issue for rich and modern women. The compulsory hijab was not a serious agenda item for most men in the opposition. A big mistake, as it led to more discrimination against women. Soon, women also lost other rights, including the right to divorce and the right to abortion.

The ayatollahs' Berlin wall 

Over the last 43 years, the Islamic regime has increasingly pressured women to accept the compulsory hijab. This policy has cost millions, thousands of women were arrested and punished for not complying. In fact, the hijab is the regime's Achilles heel, an ideological symbol that must be maintained at all costs. According to Masih Alinejad, a well-known journalist and the initiator of an anti-hijab campaign, the significance of the hijab for the Islamic regime is similar to that of the Berlin Wall for the GDR. If the compulsory hijab is abolished, the power of the ayatollahs will crumble.

Iran's new generation of women has launched a strong feminist movement. Fortunately, a new generation of men has also emerged in favour of women's rights. Side by side with women, they shout ‘Woman, life, freedom’ in the streets. An anonymous digital poll shows that 78 per cent of Iranians aged between 20 and 29, 68 per cent between 30 and 49 and 74 per cent over 50 are against the compulsory hijab. Iranians no longer believe that the country's social problems can be solved through elections and reforms. In the same survey, researchers conclude that 84 per cent of those against the hijab are also in favour of a secular state.
Since a secular state is an impossibility for the Islamic Republic, the young generation has no alternative but to revolutionise against the ayatollahs and their medieval system.

Photo above this article: Worldwide Freedom Rally, show of support for protesters in Iran. 1-10-2022, Cologne. Photographer: Max Gerlach (via Flickr)