The women pay for their freedom with their lives

The demonstrators in Iran are young, some very young, and they want something that girls of their age in America or Europe take for granted. They want to dress freely, dance, sing, flirt. Anything that’s fun. But in the Islamic Republic, the only permissible public expression of joy is to celebrate the Islamic revolution. So the young women are bustling about on Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube channels.

Sarina Esmailzadeh also had one Youtube channel. In it she talked about freedom, nutrition, once sang lasciviously with an ice cream cone about reincarnation, another time danced hip-hop and played volleyball in a mixed-gender group. In a clip on Twitter, the 16-year-old sits in her parents’ car, with her younger sister next to her. “Take Me to the Church” by the Irish folk rock musician Hozier sounds from the speakers, she sings along with the lyrics expressively.

For more freedom

On September 23, the young woman left home to take part in the protests against the death of Mahsa Amini in her hometown of Karaj, near Tehran, and to stand up for an end to the compulsory headscarf. Esmailzadeh did not return home alive. According to Amnesty International, the security forces beat the girl so severely in the body and head with batons that she died from her injuries.

Mahsa Amini may also have been beaten to death. The 22-year-old Kurdish woman was arrested by the moral police during a sightseeing tour in Tehran because of indecent clothing. Authorities insist that Amini died due to an illness. She was operated on at the age of eight for a brain tumor and still had to take medication, according to a statement to the NZZ.

However, relatives are firmly convinced that Amini lost her life as a result of beatings. Whatever the cause of her death on September 16, Amini’s fate triggered something that hasn’t happened in Iran since the proclamation of the Islamic Republic in 1979: women and men are fighting against the hijab coercion and for more freedom in their personal decisions en masse onto the streets.

With her hair in her hand

Thousands have demonstrated across the country in the last three weeks, with women in the front row. As is so often the case, the security forces acted with great brutality. One of the first victims was mother of three, Minu Majidi. On September 20, the 52-year-old Kurdish woman was shot dead during a demonstration in Kermanshah.

In an act of mourning and protest, a daughter of Majidi stood behind her mother’s grave, which was decorated with flowers, and had her bare head photographed. She tied the white scarf around her neck. She almost shaved her head. In her left hand she holds a long, curly head of hair. The image went viral and has inspired numerous artists.

Two other women were also shot dead by the security forces on the same day as Majidi. 32-year-old Ghazaleh Chalevi, a keen mountaineer, was killed in Amol, a town on the Caspian Sea. 23-year-old Hananeh Kia died in Nowshahr, also on the Caspian Sea.

With shotgun balls against hope

Above all, it is the young women and girls who rebel. During protests, they tear off their headscarves and defiantly hurl the Kurdish battle cry at the security forces: “Woman, life, freedom.” 22-year-old Hadis Najafi also attended a protest gathering on September 21. Like Sarina Esmailzadeh, she lived in Karaj and demonstrated on social networks how she actually wanted to live: free and carefree.

Before going to the demonstration, she recorded a video of herself. “I really hope that everything will change in a few years,” says Najafi in the video. Then she will be happy to have taken part in the protests. Shortly afterwards, the young woman died. According to Amnesty, Najafi was hit by shotgun pellets at close range in the face, neck and chest.

After the students, it was mainly the schoolchildren who challenged the conservative establishment this week. On the school grounds, they took pictures of themselves with long, bare hair. At some schools, students tore down the picture of the founder of the republic, Ayatollah Khomeiny, and trampled it on them, and some even drove out representatives of the Bassij militia.

A fall from a great height?

The protests have already claimed dozens of lives, including at least six women and girls. One of them was Nika Shahkarami, who went to a demonstration in Tehran on September 20. Shortly thereafter, the 16-year-old sent her aunt Atash Shahkarami a final text message saying she was being hunted by security forces. For days, the family scoured prisons and hospitals in search of the youngster.

Last Saturday, the authorities finally handed over the body to the family. According to official information, she died from a fall from a great height, but relatives doubt this. On the day of her 17th birthday, they transferred the body to Khorramabad, where the family is from. The aunt writes in an obituarywho has since been arrested, on Twitter: “May the death of the brave give birth to thousands of brave Nikas.”