There have been some claims that the protests are anti-Islam,
or that they’re actually about the economy, or that Israel
and the United States are behind what’s been happening.
So, let’s try to clear some of that up.
To properly understand what protesters are calling
for now, it’s important to go back to what
and who started this movement in the first place.
The current protests started after the death of Mahsa
Jina Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman.
She was arrested by Iran’s so-called morality police
for improperly wearing a hijab and died while in custody.
The Iranian government says she had pre-existing
medical conditions, but her family has denied this,
and eyewitnesses say they saw her being beaten by authorities.
What came next
were mass protests, initiated and led by women,
that quickly spread across the country.
Images of women defying local laws by cutting their hair
in public and burning hijabs in the streets went viral.
This, however, did lead to a bit of confusion in some places
about whether the protests were anti-Islam
and were simply about banning the hijab,
something protesters and Iranians around
the world have made very clear is not the case.
Whoever is thinking of it as though it’s
a war against hijab in Islam is very close minded.
They want the choice to wear the hijab,
to not wear the hijab.
It's about people's choice.
People's choice to be Muslim
or Baha'i
or Christian
or Catholic
or Jew.
Some of the international coverage
has also been criticised
for implying that the protests
are largely caused
by, and are mostly about,
economic problems.
Again, something that many Iranians believe
downplays the real reason why this movement started.
There was a New York Times article that came out
that put the protests down to economical crisis,
which is extremely inappropriate and wrong.
Nobody is out in the streets
in Iran saying, “revive the nuclear deal.”
Many protests in the past
have been the result of poverty
and bad economy,
and a lot about corruption.
But this time around,
protesters are way beyond policy criticism.
You don’t hear any slogans about the sanctions,
“lift the sanctions,”
or about American policy.
If you want to know what the Iranian protesters
are actually calling for,
all you need to do is look at footage of the protests
and listen to what they're saying.
The protesters are saying
Zen, Zendegi, Azadi.
Woman, Life, Freedom, which actually originated as a Kurdish
slogan, has become the signature chant
of the protests.
‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ are the concepts
that the government
has maintained its power
for more than 43 years by suppressing.
The bitter reality is that the Islamic Republic in Iran
has become an apartheid state for women,
who are segregated from men in the workplace, in classrooms
and at beaches, are banned from attending sports
arenas, riding bicycles and singing solo in public
and have to sit at the back of the bus.
They are denied the highest offices of the country.
They can’t be president, they can’t be in any
major decision making positions.
They can’t even be judges.
It’s important to note that while the protests
may have been started and led by Iranian women,
the movement has grown
to include Iranians from all walks of life.
This movement is a mass movement.
It's the beginning of a revolution.
It's happening everywhere
in Iran, at every level, at every ethnicity, every class.
Young students are openly
screaming and chanting.
There really is this groundswell
of rage and anger and just exasperation
with this morally, financially corrupt regime.
Mahsa Amini’s death just ignited this spark.
It's evolved into a movement that's calling for human rights.
Choice, freedom and basic human rights
are the core of what protesters are demanding.
Iranians want a secular government.
Where open and free elections are held,
where people can stand up and have a voice,
where people can stand up
and question the government of the day
without fear of being reprimanded.
The Iranian government has been violently
cracking down on
the protest movement.
Human rights organisations
are reporting that
thousands of protesters
have been arrested,
more than 240 have been killed,
including at least 30 children.
Reports of arbitrary arrests
and the killing
and detention of children
are deeply worrying.
Among these deaths were two young women
who joined in the protests,
Nika and Sarina,
and just like Mahsa Jina Amini,
they have become symbols of the movement too.
In the past,
there has been hope amongst Iranians
that they’d be able
to achieve change through reform
by electing certain politicians and trying to push
through new laws.
However, that is not what this protest movement is calling for.
Whereas in the past they may have protested
for reformation of the regime,
now they are really calling for the regime change.
These people, they want regime change.
They don't want reform.
Supporters of regime change
believe that reform is impossible
while the Iranian regime remains in power,
because Iran is not a real democracy.
They're saying, “Down with dictator.”
“Down with the dictator,”
“Death to the dictator,”
“Death to Khamenei,”
are all chants that are being repeated
by protesters around the country.
Ayatollah Khamenei is Iran's Supreme Leader.
That's a position that's appointed
by a small group of religious officials
and not elected by the Iranian people.
Despite this,
the Supreme Leader holds pretty much ultimate power over
all aspects of Iranian life,
including Iranian politics.
This political system in Iran is designed
so that there is no change.
Since the current regime came into power in 1979.
The Supreme Leader and religious elite have blocked
any potential changes that would weaken their power
or go against their particular interpretation of Islam.
Reformists, they failed.
They couldn't do anything.
Inside the country, accountability is impossible.
Iranians have tried through elections.
The problem is,
they can't really go to the polls and elect who they want
because these men are selecting
people who can run.
Now, this next part is very important.
Just because many Iranians are calling for regime change
does not mean that
they want foreign militaries to intervene in Iran.
The majority of Iranian people, they don't want intervention by
foreign forces.
Protesters still want the future
of Iran to be decided by Iranians.
It is vital for the Iranian people, like anyone
else, to have control
and democratic choices over their country.
However, that doesn't mean that they want
the international community to do nothing.
In fact, Iranians around the world
have been calling for action since the protests first began.
Until the women of Iran are free,
we are going to stand with you.
This can be split into two different sections.
For everyday people, the focus is on
raising awareness and amplifying the voices of Iranians.
I cannot emphasise how much it means to people inside,
and how much it matters both outside and inside,
when you speak up and post about what is happening in Iran.
There are a few reasons why Iranians
believe this is so important.
The first is that
the Iranian government has been cutting internet access
and blocking social media sites, which makes it harder
for Iranian people to share what's been happening.
Despite this, some videos have found their way
onto the internet, thanks to workarounds like VPNs.
By sharing this vision, people around the world can see
what's happening from the perspective of the protesters,
something that can be really hard to find as media
that's critical of the government
isn't really allowed to exist in Iran.
Plus, the Iranian government has been trying
to push its own narrative that Iranians
aren't behind the protests and that it's actually
the United States and Israel that are pulling the strings.
Beyond providing an alternate
perspective, showing solidarity online
and in the streets can have a big impact on protesters.
Whether that's seeing their chants on international news
or seeing hundreds of thousands
of people filling the streets
in cities around the world.
We are here to be the voice of the people in Iran.
It is so important for us to be here.
We are behind you all.
We will never give in.
We will never give up.
We will never back down and we will never,
ever surrender.
The most important thing I really want people to
people to understand
that they are heard,
and that
risking their lives
has not been in vain.
I also want those mums
that lost their kids,
I really want them to be heard.
These types of actions also signal
to international media and governments
that both Iranian and non-Iranian
people are concerned with what's been happening,
which can lead to more media scrutiny
and can pressure world leaders to act.
Many Iranians want to see more than just words
condemning violence against the protesters.
They condemn, you know, if they condemn,
and then they move on to business as usual.
Iranians want to see direct assistance being given.
For example, helping the people of Iran access the Internet.
Iranian groups are also working with human rights organisations
like Amnesty International to push the United Nations
to set up an independent investigation.
What they do is they document human rights abuses.
They collect evidence, which is really important
because that's what can be used to hold people accountable.
It can lead to justice at the international level
under the International Court of Justice or the International
Criminal Court.
This can lead to targeted sanctions against members
of the regime.
Putting sanctions on
Iranian diplomats is very useful
because it would not disadvantage innocent people.
It can also work towards delegitimising the regime itself
and make atrocities less likely to happen
if the world is watching and paying close attention.
Tehran still cares about
how it is perceived by the international societies.
So long as the international community is focused on Iran
and the Iranian regime is held to task
and knows that people around
the world are watching,
it can't continue
to commit these murders.
It’s a very powerful message to Iran's leaders
that their crimes will not be forgotten,
that the Mahsas will not before
forgotten.
Finally, one of the most important things
that Iranian protesters around the world want people to know,
is this is about more than just what's happening in Iran.
Human rights is universal,
and the international community needs to act collectively.
It warns other authoritarian
regimes and other patriarchal societies
to think twice about women’s rights in their own country.
If women in Iran can come out of this and
walk down the street without being worried
about being stopped,
I'm sure that women in Afghanistan will
look at that and be like, “we want that.”
You know, if we fight for human rights, if we fight for women's
human rights in Iran,
we're fighting for all women around the world.