Say their names
For most young women today, our worries can be trivial – we worry about boys and girls, the silly crushes we have, the clothes we like, those missing assignments or countless arguments with our parents. Our youthfulness is fun – it is not dangerous. Seeing all the political unrest in Iran, then, was surreal. Watching it all appear on my Instagram feed from my place of privilege not having to live in fear of the mortality police murdering me, all made me realise just how lucky I am. I simply had to try and help somehow, even if it meant just trying to spread awareness.
The sixteenth of September 2022, the day that 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was inhumanely murdered over a “bad hijab”. Iranian officials claimed she died after suffering a “heart attack” and falling into a coma, however, Mahsa’s family claimed she had no preexisting health conditions and that they weren’t allowed in to see her after the incident. Her father Amjad Amini told the BBC, “They’re lying. They’re telling lies. Everything is a lie…no matter how much I begged, they wouldn’t let me see my daughter”, this caused an uproar of protests with eyewitnesses confidently saying she "was beaten in custody by Iran's morality police. Her death is unforgivable” and that her death was in fact not an accident. There is no question about it, what happened was murder, and no one’s doing anything about it.
Instead of giving this poor woman justice, the Iranian government instead decided to cut off the internet and shut down mobile networks. Access to platforms such as WhatsApp and Instagram have been extremely limited, the government’s pathetic attempt to silence protesters. Protesters in Iran are heroically risking their own lives to fight for justice, for Mahsa and all the others killed by the nightmare-inducing morality police. One of the rare videos filmed in Iran appeared on social media, showing women in Tehran bravely taking off their hijabs and waving them while chanting "death to the dictator”. Another video showed a motorcycle burning on a street adjacent to the judiciary building in the capital. These protests are just the beginning of an even bigger movement to defund, deconstruct and dismantle Islam’s morality police.
All of this horror begs another question – Who are Iran’s morality police? The morality police are a branch of law enforcement with access to power, arms, and detention centres, they also have control over the recently introduced "re-education centres”, which shockingly resemble The Handmaid’s Tale’s dystopian red centre. The level of control and access to resources the morality police have is catastrophically dangerous for citizens, especially women. What we’ve seen from Mahsa’s death is only a small amount of media coverage of what really goes on in Iran. The morality police have already killed dozens during protest. The morality police? Irony is dead. One sick officer even said it feels as though they are “going out for a hunt” when they deliberately pick on a busy area so they can harass women. How is this sanctioned by the government? These police have more power than women ever will, and they are abusing it in order to beat and murder innocent women.
The list is growing, 2022, Mahsa Amini, beaten for a supposedly ‘bad hijab’. 2022, Sepideh Rashnum ,a 28-year-old artist arrested over an argument about a women’s hijab, she was seen two weeks later, battered, and bruised on TV giving a forced confession. 2018, an innocent student in Tehran, seen hanging from the morality polices van (it’s STILL unclear what happened here). 2007, Zahra Bani-Yaghoub, found dead after ’taking her own life’, in other words assaulted and murdered in a detention centre. How many names? How many names until we do something? How many names until the government takes us seriously?
That leaves me thinking what we can do? if you can’t personally help, post something, spread awareness of what horror is happening in Iran, write an article, share a post with resources to help. And most importantly remember to say her name – Mahsa Amini. Say all of their names, because the world knows Iran’s morality police won’t.