Written by Roja Fazaeli, Associate Professor Islamic Civilisation, Near & Middle Eastern Studies, Trinity College Dublin Iran’s Islamic Republic continues to violently suppress ongoing pro-democracy protests, which broke out in September in response to the killing of a young woman who had been arrested for not wearing a proper head covering. According to the NGO […]
Written by Whitney Shylee May, Ph.D. candidate in American Studies, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts Images of the protests that followed the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Zhina Amini on Sept. 16, 2022, in Iran and reports of the government’s brutal crackdown have circulated widely on social media. This flow of […]
Written by Negar Partow, Senior Lecturer in Security Studies, Massey University The ongoing protests in Iran over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the country’s “Guidance Patrol” (or morality police) have made world headlines. But there is another form of protest that has received less mainstream attention in Western media. […]
Written by Amy Motlagh, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Middle Eastern/South Asian Studies, University of California, Davis In images of the uprising that followed the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16, 2022, perhaps the most iconic ones, aside from that of Amini herself, are those of unveiled Iranian women photographed from behind, […]
Written by Sara Rahnama, Assistant Professor of History, Morgan State University Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching. Course Title: “Women and War” What prompted the idea for the course? When I was on a fellowship at the Library of Congress finishing my first book, “The Future […]
Iran: hijab protests reflect society-wide anger at regime which trashes rule of law and human rights
Written by Saeed Bagheri, Lecturer in International Law, University of Reading The death of Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iran’s morality police in September for not wearing the hijab properly was a fracturing point, prompting Iranian women to come on to the streets en masse to protest the regime’s violence and injustice. But our […]
Written by Daniel Salisbury, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Science and Security Studies, King’s College London It has been reported that Iran is preparing to transfer short-range ballistic missiles to Russia for use against targets in Ukraine, allegedly as part of a shipment of 1,000 additional weapons of unspecified type. Iran has allegedly […]
Written by Hossein Dabbagh, Philosophy Tutor, University of Oxford My friend was in Tehran during protests after the death of Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the morality police (Gasht-e Ershad). My friend went into a grocery shop intending to buy milk. The seller refused to sell anything to her. “Why are you refusing?” […]
Written by Niloofar Hooman, PhD candidate, Communication Studies and Media Arts, McMaster University On Sept. 16, Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, died in Tehran while in the custody of Iran’s morality police. Her death set off a massive wave of demonstrations that have spread across the country. While the protests started with anger […]
Written by Rebeca Pardo, Decana de la Facultad de CC de la Comunicación, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya Cutting your hair or letting it grow, dyeing it or showing off they grey, sporting a mane or covering it. These are everyday acts with which millions of women claim their identities, try to fit in, fight for […]
Written by Aaron Pilkington, US Air Force Analyst of Middle East Affairs, PhD Student at Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver The war in Ukraine is helping one country achieve its foreign policy and national security objectives, but it’s neither Russia nor Ukraine. It’s Iran. That was starkly clear on the morning of […]
Written by Nasim Salehi, Senior Lecturer and Course Coordinator, Southern Cross University The “Women, Life, Freedom” movement that has taken hold in Iran in recent weeks is not new. Young Iranian women have been involved in small but consistent evolutionary actions during the entire 44 years of the Islamic Republic of Iran, particularly in the […]
Written by Homa Hoodfar, Professor of Anthropology, Emerita, Concordia University The world has been transfixed by images of Iranian women shouting “women, life, liberty,” leading protest rallies, dancing in the streets and burning their headscarves while facing armed soldiers. The displays of courage by Iranian women are not unlike their massive participation in the 2009 […]
Written by Tony Walker, Vice-chancellor’s fellow, La Trobe University As protests in Iran drag on into their fourth week over the violent death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, there are two central questions. The first is whether these protests involving women and girls across Iran are different from upheavals in the […]
Written by Eliz Sanasarian, Professor of Political Science and Gender and Sexuality Studies, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences A friend and I were strolling through Tehran’s streets one afternoon when she was approached by a member of the “morality police,” an agency tasked with enforcing modesty laws in public. First, the policewoman […]
Written by Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Professor in Global Thought and Comparative Philosophies, SOAS, University of London More than three weeks after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Ahmini for disobeying Iran’s strict laws, which make it compulsory for women to wear the hijab – or Islamic headscarf – protests continue to rage on the streets of all […]