'Woman, Life, Freedom' spirit lives on as Iran war drags on

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

For many Iranians, the brutality of law enforcement officers toward women accused of violating hijab rules was 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 with a violent clampdown.

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

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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 said the movement had clear goals right from the start: ending the hijab mandate and ending state violence against Iran's population. Though those goals were ultimately not met, the protests did lead many people to recognize their own power within the society.

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

Even now, amid the ongoing war with the United States , 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.