Iran: 'Woman, Life, Freedom' lives on despite war

A 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Jina Mahsa Amini , passed away in a Tehran hospital on September 16, 2022. She had left her home in northwestern Iran to visit the capital and was then confronted by Tehran's morality police, who claimed Amini was violating the hijab mandate ordering women to cover their hair. The police arrested her. Three days later, she was declared dead .

For many Iranians, the law enforcement's brutality towards women who allegedly broke the hijab rules is nothing new. And yet, Amini's death triggered an unprecedented outpouring of anger. Protesters all across the country took to the streets under the slogan "Woman, Life, Freedom." They marched for months , but the regime eventually managed to suppress the movement in a violent crackdown.

"From my perspective, the movement 'Woman, Life, Freedom' is the biggest social and cultural change in Iran in decades," said writer, poet and activist Pouran Nazemi.

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Nazemi's work as a women's rights activist has gotten her arrested several times in recent years. Still, she refuses to be intimidated.

She told DW that the movement had clear goals right from the start: Ending the hijab mandate and ending state violence against Iran's population. While those goals were ultimately not met, the protests did trigger an important change — they prompted many people to recognize their own power within the society.

"The institutions still use physical violence and occasional arrests against us," said Nazemi. "But something fundamental has changed."

Even now, amid the ongoing war with the US , parts of the Iranian regime are still focusing on the hijab mandate . Many politicians are supporting a new bill which would introduce significantly stricter punishments for women violating the hijab order in public places.