A Deeper Look at Protests in Iran
Ada Lambert | February 16, 2023
Iran has become increasingly unsafe for women in the past few months since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on Sep. 16, 2022. Her death has sparked a series of protests that have since resulted in a huge crackdown from the Iranian regime.
On Feb. 5, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei made a public statement to reduce prison sentences for “tens of thousands” of Iranians involved in the recent protests. This is the first time the supreme leader has acknowledged the extent of the restriction.
This past weekend on Feb. 11, protesters rallied together in an act of celebration and civil disobedience against the Iranian government to mark the 44-year anniversary of Iran’s 1979 Revolution.
Warren Wilson College (WWC) sociology professor, Siti Kusujiarti, has followed the case of Amini closely. Kusujiarti was born in Indonesia and lived there for most of her life before coming to the U.S. Her proximity to Muslim culture has helped her build a much more developed understanding of the current state in Iran compared to some U.S. news articles.
“The media here is very diverse, it depends on what kind of media we look at,” Kusujiarti said. “There is a kind of trend for the media here to picture this case and this tragedy as the problem of Muslim societies, that there are oppressions in this Islamic-based country, and that leads to problems.”
Kusujiarti noted her awareness of how different countries represent international news. Since biases within cultures exist and there has been a steady increase in unreliable media sources, she is always wary to take one perspective as the ultimate truth.
“I read media here in the U.S. and media in Indonesia,” Kusujiarti said. “That's interesting for me when I look at news like the war in Iran right now. I try to compare how media from different countries cover that issue and the lenses that they are using.”
From her perspective, there are many elements of Iran's current state perpetuating this national unrest, though it is likely that not everyone knows the extent since there is almost no access to Iranian media at this time.
“This is a human rights tragedy,” Kusujiarti said. “I think we need to understand a kind of more holistic picture of why this is happening.”
The baseline of these protests is that women are being discriminated against, but Kusujiarti believes that U.S. media has been negligent in explaining the context of the recent protests, and in turn, that has spread misleading ideas about Muslim culture.
“They have been activists; this is not the first time that they've been active in this movement,” Kusujiarti said. “It’s only presented that way because a woman was killed, but that concern about the limitations of their rights has been there for a long time. They have been organizing themselves for generations.”
Kusujiarti highlighted the many lenses that need to be considered to understand how Iranian society has gotten to this point. She explains how factors such as historical context, the political system, religion and ethnic tensions have all played a role in the demonstrations taking place.
The Historical Lens
In 1979, Iran underwent a series of protests to overthrow their previous leader, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and end the monarchy. This led to the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini, who implemented a form of government called a theocratic republic.
“To understand this case, we need to understand the history,” Kusujiarti said. “Before 1979, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was in power. That was another authoritarian regime, but it was more secular and was supported by Western Power. Then there were the revolutions by people that wanted to create more freedom and democracy.”
Despite the behaviors of Iran’s monarchy before the revolution, there were more freedoms for women. Under Pahlavi’s rule, education was more accessible to women, they received the right to vote, changed the legal marriage age from 13 to 18 and encouraged women to unveil if they wanted to.
In 1936, veiling was abolished. This meant that women were no longer required to present themselves to the public with any type of Islamic covering. Veiling was reinstated after the revolution. Iranian women, once again, lost their right to choose.
Iranian women's rights regressed significantly after 1979. The legal marriage age was lessened to only 9-years-old, educational rights were stripped and women in government positions had to leave their jobs.
“There have been more moderate presidents, so they were opening a little bit more space for freedom and expression,” Kusujiarti said. “Sometimes the door was closed, and then sometimes the door was open.”
The Political Aspect
In Iran’s theocratic republic, there is a line of power — the supreme leader, who has reigning power over the general foreign and domestic policies of Iran — and then the president — who is in charge of setting economic policies. The presidency position is similar to the US in that candidates can only serve for two four-year terms, but the supreme leader position is a life tenure, so the position can be held until death or voluntary resignation.
Iran’s supreme leader is the son of Khomeini, who took over office after his father died in 1989. The current president is Ebrahim Raisi, who is a close ally of Khomeini. Raisi was elected on June 18, 2021, despite public disapproval. Iranian people saw the election to be skewed in Raisi’s favor due to his elitist status amongst government officials. The other three candidates were disqualified due to “spoiled ballots.”
Raisi is known to be an ultra-conservative “hardliner.” Previously, he has faced allegations of human rights abuses, including the mass execution of thousands of prisoners, who were mostly protesters. Raisi was sanctioned by the Trump administration in 2019.
“The current President, Raisi, is coming from a much stricter background,” Kusujiarti said. “He has been empowering the morality police forces, while the last President was trying to control or create a restraint on them to keep from doing any severe actions. So all of a sudden, last year, these morality forces got the backing of the president and they are being empowered and they feel like they can do anything they want.”
The morality police, officially known as the “guidance patrol,” was instituted in 2005, but had existed in many different forms beforehand. Despite their technical role being to enforce dress codes among all Iranians, the morality police have widely focused on women. Under Raisi’s presidency, they have increased their presence in larger cities.
Punishment for women who are not correctly covered has varied depending on the president in office. Most common penalties include arrest, prison sentence, fines or 74 lashes. Despite being illegal, women have also faced knife attacks, beatings and acid attacks in which bystanders throw acid on women who are not properly covered.
“The important thing with this type of regime is the control of women’s bodies and how that is being used as a tool to control the whole population,” Kusujiarti said. “When they claim that they want to apply the religious law, they don't. There’s a disconnect between what they claim and what they do as well — and I think that in itself, we need to be critical about why that kind of regime usually only implements very specific aspects of the law.”
To further maintain control of Iranians during this time, the government has shut down most access to the internet inside the country. Because of this, a lot of information about the current state of Iran is unknown.
While U.S. human rights groups claim that there have been nearly 600 deaths involving the protests, Iran international news has received data that leads them to believe that number could be closer to 5,000 deaths. There has been no factual confirmation of either statistic thus far.
The Religious/Societal Standards of Covering
Iran and Afghanistan are currently the only countries that require women to wear covers in public, but some Islamic-based countries hold certain social standards.
“Covering has become a source of debate and also a source of contentions because there are also different interpretations,” Kusujiarti said. “I researched this, asking women about the hijab. What do they think about the hijab? There are so many different perceptions about that.”
Kusujiarti explained that some Muslim women feel disempowered by wearing a covering, typically in cases where they are forced to wear them. On the other hand, there are women who feel that covering is an important part of their religion and wear it out of respect for their families. There are also women who feel empowered when covered and do not think that covering is a form of oppression.
All these ideas take root in different perspectives and lifestyles. WWC international student, Habiba Ghalab, was raised in Egypt where covering is optional.
“It's supposed to be a personal choice, I wear mine because I want to wear it,” Ghalab said. “My parents didn't force me to. It's supposed to be like that, but it depends on the people around you. In Egypt, people wear a loose hijab a lot.”
Ethnic Tension
Another element of these protests is the discrimination against Kurdish people, who primarily reside in Iran, Turkey and Iraq. Most Kurds identify as Sunni Muslims — but not all of them. They are known to be the largest ethnic group that is stateless.
Amini and her family belong to this group, which has drawn attention to ethnic tensions within Iran.
“There has been a movement to create a more autonomous region, especially in Iran, for the Kurdish people,” Kusujiarti said. “Mahsa Amini being from that region creates a lot of suspicions since a lot of people from those regions might be discriminated against.”
How to Help
Kusujiarti stated that she is aware that some U.S. media has portrayed this as an issue of Islamic culture, rather than the circumstances surrounding Amini’s death. She is urging people to educate themselves on this cause.
“I think they need to balance between creating media tensions and at the same time not supporting the stereotypical perceptions about women in Muslim communities,” Kusujiarti said. “l remember when I gave a talk and I said that I'm a Muslim but I'm also a feminist. People asked me, ‘is it possible to be Muslim and a feminist?’”
For more information, click here. For additional ways to help, click here.