Report

Iran: Young people still determined to demand more freedoms

On the streets of Tehran, in March 2023. © Murielle Paradon / RFI

Text by: Murielle Paradon Follow

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In Iran, six months after Mahsa Amini's death, there are fewer street protests demanding more freedoms. It must be said that the repression was severe. However, the determination of some young people is still intact.

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From our Special Envoy in Tehran,

They met in a café near Tehran University. Three friends aged 20, three students in jeans-basketball, sporting long brown hair. Unimaginable 6 months ago: these young women do not wear a veil, although Iranian law obliges them to do so. Mahsa Amini's death changed their lives. After the death of the young Kurd for a badly worn headscarf, Shirin* decided to join the protest movement to demand more freedoms, including the freedom to dress as she wishes: "At first, we were really very afraid, because if you did not wear the headscarf, it signed your death warrant," she says, It takes audacity to remove the veil. But we must continue to do so, for those who have sacrificed themselves.

For several months, young girls and boys beat the pavement against the wearing of the veil in Iran and demanded more freedoms. The slogans are clearly hostile to the Islamic regime. Hundreds dead, thousands arrested, young people executed. The repression is fierce. Yasmine* has experienced this. She escaped it beautiful during a demonstration. "I managed to escape, but we were shot," she said. We found refuge in a house. The young woman tells how the owner helped the young protesters by preventing the police from entering her house. They escaped arrest, but many of Yasmine's friends were not so lucky, she said, "many have been arrested, shot, some are still in trouble, they can't go back to university."

Religious education courses as punishment

With the repression, the protests have diminished. Removing one's veil becomes an act of resistance, increasingly visible in the streets of Tehran and especially in cafes. Shirin symbolically burned her veil on the grounds of her university, during a gathering between boys and girls. As a result, she received ten compulsory Islamic education classes to remind her of the rules. "A mullah came to give us classes on Islam and theology, he told us about divine laws. And then they gave us back our student cards," she explains. But if it was the second or third time you were sanctioned, you were suspended from your studies. The boys were sent to military service.

The young woman jokes about these religious education classes she had to undergo: "Basically, you are told to love Supreme Leader Khamanei and that Khomeini was a good person. Khomeini was honest, whereas during the period of the Shah who ruled the country before, women could not study! Everything we were told tended to annoy us and push us to go back to the streets to demonstrate to get rid of these morons! " she says.

Shirin, Yasmine and Ava at a café in Tehran, March 2023. © Murielle Paradon / RFI

An appeal to older generations

The rejection of the mullahs' regime is very present among some students. Ava*, who has so far stayed away from her friends, would like the youth protest movement to spread more to other layers of the population and go far beyond the issue of the veil. "The hijab is the pillar of the Islamic Republic. For more than forty years, they have tried by all means to impose it on us. And by not respecting the wearing of the veil, we call into question the very existence of the Islamic Republic. But it is true that we expect more, she pleads. We are waiting for the silent majority to come forward. In particular, we hope that inflation, the high cost of living will push everyone to express their anger and that it is not only our generation that sacrifices itself. He added: "At some point, those who took part in the 1979 revolution must also rise up. And that we try to overthrow the power by all means.

The regime's takeover of the situation has deterred young Iranians from returning en masse to the streets. But these three young women are convinced, the protests will resume sooner or later. "A seed has been planted," Ava concludes, "it has time to grow.

► READ ALSO: Iranian women tell their determination to continue the fight despite the repression

* First names have been changed

The regime's perspective with Iran's Vice President for Women and Family Affairs

RFI: Iran has been experiencing a protest movement for six months, following the death of Mahsa Amini. How do you respond to this movement?

Ensiyeh Khazali: What happened in recent months was not a feminist movement, some tried to start a movement on behalf of women, but it was a form of abuse against them. Mahsa Amini died in an accident, she never received a blow to the head [...] But some have tried to portray her as a victim of murder for which the Iranian state is allegedly responsible. The media, especially foreign ones, have given a lot of momentum to this case and they have launched, as well as some foreign leaders, an unprecedented offensive against Iran.

RFI: Thousands of young people were arrested during the demonstrations. Women who have been released from prison have claimed to have been ill-treated or even raped in detention, what do you say to that?

E.K.: That's not true. I went to prison several times and I talked to young women, I listened to them, it was not the case at all. Some belonged to the upper classes of society, they had pretentious demands, but the conditions of detention were good and appropriate. Finally, they have not provided any evidence for their allegations.

RFI: Several young men were executed. This shocked a lot abroad...

E.K.: We apply the law of retaliation, that is to say that the victim's family can claim the death of the perpetrator of a murder, by hanging. Here, that right does not belong to the state, but to the families [...] and even if you try to dissuade families and convince them to forgive, they can refuse.

RFI: To return to women's demands, some are demanding the right not to wear the veil, why not grant it to them?

E.K.: Here, as in every country, we have dress rules in the law. They must be respected. Some do not recognize this law, but they do not represent a majority. We believe that this law aims to protect women from violence. The question of the hijab is present in our Islamic culture as well as in Iranian culture, we see it in our traditions, unlike in Europe where it is the opposite. And with regard to other demands, we are working in the legal field to respond to women's demands, especially on the issue of marriage.

RFI: The dance of a group of young women in Tehran to a famous hit has made the rounds on social networks. These girls were arrested and had to make excuses, veiled, for dancing. There is a concern about their fate, what becomes of them?

E.K.: It was not necessarily the question of dance, but some are manipulated from abroad [...] It is a project to oppose the state and overthrow it, it is neither a story of sailing nor dance, there are other objectives behind it. These women were reprimanded, they apologized for breaking the law. And now they are free, the case is closed.

Interview by Mr. Paradon

► READ ALSO: Uncertainty about the fate of the five young Iranian women arrested for a choreography

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