Protests over Mahsa Amini’s death in Iran

On September 13th, a 22-year old woman named Mahsa Amini was walking through Tehran, Iran, when morality police officers arrested her because they claimed her hijab was too loose for the strict dress codes upheld by the country’s religion. While she was in custody, Amini fell into a coma induced by the police’s physical beatings and died three days after. Since then, protests have broken out across the country and internationally, battling for women’s rights and freedom.

Iran’s morality police, also known as the Guidance Patrol, is a group of government enforcers that report directly to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. One of their tasks is ensuring Iranian women are dressed modestly in public – this includes wearing headscarves that completely cover their hair. These officers have previously been accused of abusing their power towards women and girls; the regime justifies their strict laws about how women should behave based on certain ambiguous parts of the Quran (The Globe and Mail, 2022). For example, while women are required to dress piously, it is debated whether the passages that refer to the hijab, an Arabic word that also means a covering or partition, literally necessitate women covering their heads. Some of the current Iranian protestors have emphasized that they are not necessarily fighting against hijabs or even solely women’s rights, but the draconian conditions living under an authoritarian regime with vague standards for what a “proper” hijab looks like (The Globe and Mail, 2022). Armed with weapons, riot police have met the protestors with brutal force.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, Mélanie Joly, states that all around the world, we are witnessing the courage of Iranian women, youths and citizens as “they risk their lives to demand their human rights” (Lee, 2022). Though heartbreaking, it is inspiring to see that many of the leaders in these protests are young women who have grown increasingly defiant of the modesty laws and are fighting to make their voices heard.

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Contributors: Suzanne Li

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References:

Lee, H. (2022, Oct 19). Canada announces new Iran sanctions amid protests over Mahsa Amini death. Global News. Retrieved Oct, 24, 2022 from https://globalnews.ca/news/9211475/canada-sanctions-iranian-officials-entities-human-rights-vio lations-mahsa-amini/ The Globe and Mail. (2022, Oct 19).

Iran protests: What you need to know about Mahsa Amini, the country’s hijab laws and morality police. Retrieved Oct, 24, 2022 from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-iran-protests-mahsa-amini