What happened?
On September 16th 2022, the morality police of Iran’s Law Enforcement murdered 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after her arrest for not wearing her hijab “properly”. Eyewitnesses have stated that Amini was severely beaten by her detainers, as leaked medical examinations determined cerebral haemorrhage and a stroke as the cause of her death.
After Mahsa Amini’s murder by the terrorist regime of Iran, and despite the latter foolishly attempting to cover up its crime claiming Mahsa passed away as a result of a heart attack and brain seizure due to health conditions she already suffered from, a claim denied by her parents, thousands of Iranian took to the streets to protest. The protests, having suffered as well from the barbaric and thuggish response of the terrorist regime, grew into country-wide demonstrations, strikes and civil disobedience.
Women defied the hijab laws as many took off their headscarves and burned them on the streets. The protest slogans targeted the Iranian regime in the person of the tyrant Khamenei, the second supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran Human Rights reported the deaths of 133 people (as of October 2nd) as a result of further police brutality. The protestors have made their goal to dismantle the regime and its extremist laws clear as the protests continue to the day this article is being written.
The Stand
Regardless of the political implications of Mahsa Amini’s death and the protests that followed, Mahsa is another woman to join the host of women who paid with their lives for making a stand against men attempting to control their bodies. The names and laws change, but the goal is one, controlling what a woman would wear, say, and do. The Islamic Republic of Iran murdered Mahsa Amini for not covering her hair according to a law created by extremist men, while in other areas of the world women’s lives are also being put in danger as a different kind of extremist men made safe abortions hard to get by through their blinded legislations.
The problem is not with the hijab, nor with religious beliefs. The problem is with extremist men forcing their religious beliefs on others and murdering people who do not abide by their extremist way of thinking.
Mahsa Amini’s stand against the oppression of the Iranian regime should serve as a reminder that women, not only in Iran but all around the world, still suffer from patriarchy and misogyny. Perhaps as we go further to the west women are not being directly killed anymore by the zealots, however, branding a woman based on what she chooses to wear or say is also part of this systematic misogyny that has been hounding the lives of women since the dawn of time, and still exists in every part of the world. Moreover, creating laws that force women to wear the hijab is bad, but creating laws to force women to take it off is as bad.
Nothing shakes the foundations of criminal regimes more than the defiance of those who they have considered weak, even if the rebel was killed. The phantom of Mahsa Amini’s rebellion will forever echo in the halls of patriarchy, haunting every tyrant and every misogynist. Say her name. Keep her flame alive so patriarchy would burn. Mahsa Amini.
