In her weekly article, Gülseren Onanç, the Founding Chair of the SES Equality and Solidarity Association, reflects on the protests taking place in Iran and around the world after the death of Mahsa Amini. Amini was arrested by the “morality police” for violating the country’s headscarf laws on the 13th of September and died three days after falling into a coma.
Like all flights to eastern Turkey, the plane to Tehran took off at midnight. Ercan, Müjde and I were on our way to Iran, where we would spend three days together. Most of the passengers on the plane were Iranian. If the Turkish ambassador to Tehran was not my friend, I would not have wanted to go to the Islamic Republic of Iran. I found the authoritarian Islamic regime, where Khomeini ruled the country with sharia, dangerous both for the women of Iran and for the women of my country. In addition to the anger, fear and anxiety towards the system, I was also curious. I knew the deepness of the culture of Iranian women and that they did not surrender to this regime. I wondered how they resisted. I couldn’t sleep all the way through. As the plane descended to Tehran, a movement began among the passengers. Women who entered the plane with short sleeves and bare heads covered their heads and wore long clothes. We prepared our headscarves together with Müjde. We were told to cover our heads as soon as we stepped off the plane. When our plane landed in Tehran, it was not yet daylight. It was dark.
As we got off the plane and started walking towards the bus, a deep but powerful call to prayer was heard. The azan (call to prayer) seemed to be saying welcome to the Islamic Republic of Iran. That voice was the voice of the cruel order that prevented women from existing as equal and free individuals and punished women who did not cover their hair and bodies with morality police. A deep fear gripped me from time to time. I felt in the depths of my soul what a bondage it could be to be a woman in this land.
Mahsa Amini also came to visit Tehran. She wanted to see her relatives, spend some time in a big city. She was only 22 years old, her smiling face was full of life energy. We learn from her videos that she loves music and dancing. She was from the city of Saggiz in Eastern Kurdistan. She was detained by the morality police, who stopped her brother’s car, for not wearing a headscarf, which was allegedly loose. It turned out that the young woman, who was taken after being advised and told that she would be released, fell into a coma two hours after she was taken into custody and died in the hospital where she was taken. Mahsa was killed by the cruel order of the Islamic Republic of Iran because some section of her hair was visible. Mahsa wanted to feel the freedom of the wind in her hair. She could not have imagined that blowing her hair in the wind would become the flag of freedom for Iranian women, and that she would become a symbol of resistance against the oppressive order that has been going on for forty-three years. Her death was the tipping point and paved the way for a popular revolution.
Despite the fact that a week has passed since Mahsa’s murder, the protests continue on the streets of Iran and on social media. Women continue to show their reactions by posting videos of them cutting their hair and burning their headscarves.
While some Iranian legends describe women’s haircuts as part of the mourning process, this belief has turned into a representation of anger after Mahsa’s death. The Iranian Islamic regime is trying to suppress the protests with violence. To date, 31 people have been killed by the regime in protests.
The number of women participating in the protest by cutting their hair on social media is quite high. The hashtag #MahsaAmini, which was trending on Twitter to protest the murder of Amini, was used more than 1.63 million times. The women’s movement in Turkey sent messages of support to Iranian women, street protests were held in various cities, and women supported the protest by cutting their hair.
Of course, the resistance of Iranian women has not just begun. The White Wednesday Movement, has been shooting and sharing videos of women with their heads uncovered in public on social media. Women who participate in this movement, started by the Iranian activist Masih Alinejad living in the UA, do not give up even though they face up to 10 years in prison.
Iranian women, who have not stopped their street protests for the past week, told the women in Turkey in an interview with Halk TV, “Those who want sharia should look at us. Education and science are needed. Know the value of secularism and freedom, take care of it”.
34-year-old computer engineer M.S. has stated “I am always grumbled from the moment I leave the house until I enter the house. Because they ruin our lives every day. We are exposed to ill-treatment not only with the headscarf, but also in the workplace, in public transport, everywhere. There is a danger of death or arrest. I have scary moments every day. When I even see the police in traffic, my heart can’t stand it. I don’t live. I’m just counting the days. I want to leave Iran. Turkey’s situation is very good for us. Know the value of secularism, own it.”
Brave Iranian women resisting the oppressive Islamic regime illuminate both the future of their country and the path of all women living under an oppressive order. The women’s movement, which also resists political Islam, is the country’s most powerful organization that defends secularism.
Long live the women’s resistance.
Long live women’s solidarity.