An Iranian woman sits on a chair in front of a busy square in Tehran, defying the mandatory hijab law. “A few days after Mahsa’s death, I was walking past Keshavarz Boulevard when I saw a massive crowd of men and women, young and old, chanting a slogan that I’ve never heard before: ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’. It enlightened me, it was moving,” she said.
Massive protests in Iran began after the arrest and death of Mahsa Jina Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was taken into custody by the Islamic Republic’s morality police for allegedly violating the country’s mandatory hijab law. The protest spread rapidly from Amini’s hometown of Saqez to all regions of the country, involving all age groups, social classes, ethnicities, and genders. The state’s response to protestors’ demands has been swift and severe: many have been injured or killed by state security forces and many more have been arrested. Independent journalists covering the protests have also faced intimidation and the threat of arrest. To demonstrate their opposition to the government, women in Iran have been going out in public without wearing a hijab, turning everyday life into an act of civil disobedience.
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