by cutting their hair and burning hijabs?
And are we witnessing
These are some of the big questions being asked right now.
Mass protests have spread across the country and authorities
have responded with violent and deadly force.
The event that sparked all of this
was the death of Mahsa Amani, a young Iranian woman
who died while being held by Iran's morality police.
On September 13th, Amini, who was reportedly
arrested for wearing a hijab too loosely
that's considered a crime in Iran
as women are required to dress modestly
and cover their hair when in public.
There are reports that Ms Amini was beaten
on the head with a baton and her head was banged
against the vehicle by so-called ‘morality police’.
She fell into a coma shortly after collapsing
at Vozara Detention Centre.
Ms Amini, who also goes by the Kurdish name Jhina,
died three days later.
Authorities say Amini died of natural causes
and that she had
prior health conditions and suffered heart failure.
But her family says that she had no health issues
and that the government
is simply trying to cover up what actually happened.
Amini was arrested by Iran’s ‘Guidance Patrol’,
which is commonly referred to as the ‘morality police’.
Its primary role is to enforce religious laws in Iran,
such as strict rules on dress, behavior and mixing
between men and women in public.
Punishments can take a number
of different forms, from a simple warning
to physical beatings, and the morality police
are given a lot of freedom to operate.
They have ultimate power.
There is no checks or balances for morality police.
Unlike Australia, Iran doesn’t have a separation
between religion and government.
In fact, many people consider Iran to be a ‘theocracy’.
That’s basically a form of government
where a religious leader rules in the name of a higher power.
In Iran, that figure is the Supreme Leader
who is appointed by a small group of religious officials.
He embodies the sovereignty of God
and therefore he possesses enormous
divine and constitutional powers.
Iran does have elements of democracy.
It has a president, parliament and elections.
But the Supreme Leader, who is not elected by
the public, is the most powerful figure.
Since 1989, that position has been held
by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The Supreme Leader controls the armed forces, appoints
judges, and has the final say on all important policies.
We don't have an independent judiciary,
so even if they break the law,
you know, you go complain to who?
To themselves?
The Supreme Leader also appoints half of the members
of the Guardian Council, a 12-man body that controls
Iranian politics and has the power to block laws
as well as candidates for parliament and even president.
Just in case you’re wondering about the other half,
they’re appointed by the Chief Justice,
who himself is appointed by
the Supreme Leader.
To add to all
of this, the Guardian Council also has to approve anyone
that wants to run for a spot in the Assembly of Experts.
That’s the group I mentioned earlier that’s supposed
to have the power to appoint and dismiss the Supreme Leader.
But in its entire existence,
the Assembly has never dismissed
or even questioned a sitting Supreme Leader.
The constitution, and the bodies that are guarding
the constitution, are all
in the control of a minority of seminary clerics,
old men with beards and turbans,
and they decide for everyone.
All of this is important to remember
when it comes to understanding
what the protesters are currently asking for.
What started as a response to the death of Mahsa
Amini has transformed into a bigger movement,
calling for an end to the laws and systems
that oppress women and minorities in Iranian society
and an end to the overwhelming control
of the country by an unelected minority.
Women want freedoms.
Freedoms that are not just restricted to the headscarf.
They want freedoms to access education,
freedoms to leave Iran without having to ask
their husbands for permission to do so.
The protest is now calling
for the end of theocracy.
The population sees the Islamic Republic of Iran
as completely oblivious
to the interests of the Iranian population.
The bottom
line is the people of Iran can't achieve
real change through elections if the Supreme Leader
and the Guardian Council have ultimate political power.
That's why the street is the only place they could go.
Even when politicians do emerge that want to change the system.
They’re often
blocked from even being able to run in the first place.
In the controversial 2021 presidential election,
the Guardian Council disqualified
all of the main moderate and reformist candidates, and
less than half the population bothered showing up to vote.
Any real change would require upending Iran’s
entire power structure, something that famously happened
during the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
The uprising transformed Iran from a secular Westernising
monarchy, which operated largely as a dictatorship
with little political freedom but more social freedoms,
into the Islamic Republic that we know of today.
Ever since the Islamic Republic managed
to secure its hold on
power and impose its strict
reading of Sharia law, its own version of Sharia law.
Women’s rights have been depleted.
In 1982, the law passed, and women
age of marriage got reduced to nine.
The right to divorce went down the down the tube
and the right to
custody of your children.
At the moment, there are a lot of comparisons
between what’s happening right now
and what happened in the 1970s.
But is another full-scale
revolution actually on the way?
There is a large groundswell of support that has spread
across the country, even in smaller, more
traditionally religious towns.
There are also signs that Iran’s large
youth population has had enough and is unsatisfied.
But according to the experts, there are some key differences
between what’s happening now and 1979.
Firstly, the current protest movement
doesn’t have a unified leader or opposition group driving it.
A lot of eager
young Iranians are prepared to sacrifice their lives
and call for freedom, but they do it in
a very disorganized, haphazard,
and disjointed fashion.
That’s partly because for years, any opposition groups
that had begun to rise
in Iran were quickly and aggressively crushed.
Every group that organises
with one,
two becomes three and four becomes five.
They go after them.
And it has succeeded in wiping out
all viable alternatives.
Another big difference is Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard.
After the revolution, the guard was set up to protect
Iran’s new Islamic system, even though the Guard Corps
is actually smaller than Iran’s regular military.
It’s considered to be the most powerful force in the country.
It also benefits a lot from the current regime,
and its members would lose a lot of their benefits
and status in society if things were to change.
The armed forces
basically operate as a mega corporation.
They own
private, private properties.
They own companies.
They have their own factories, manufacturing,
and of course, they can add to that
the ideological commitment of Revolutionary Guards
to this idea of an Islamic state.
So, what happens next?
Protesters and human rights
groups have called on the international community
to hold the Iranian government accountable for its actions.
They need to be calling for a credible, impartial,
and independent investigation into mass and minister.
We need
an accountability mechanism
at the UN so that the Iranian leaders know
that they can’t kill and get away with it.
And to show strong support for all human
rights in Iran, including the repeal of discriminatory laws
against women.
Inside Iran, the government has continued its crackdown.
The government has only one
response to protests.
They only know how to use
brute force and suppress dissent.
There have been mass arrests, Internet blackouts
and protesters are being killed every day
by Iranian security forces.
But despite all of this, the protests have continued.
And question is how long
the politics of repression will work for the regime.
Even if the government does manage to stop protesters
this time.
There’s a belief among some experts that
because of the size and momentum of this movement,
the bell has been rung,
and Iran’s leadership may be forced
to make some fundamental changes
sooner or later.
Gives a very clear
warning to the Islamic regime that it has lost
its gloss with the public and does not have the support
of many segments of the Iranian public.
And therefore, the time has come to open the way
for structural reforms to meet the grievances
of the public, which is very widespread.
Or it is going to face an upheaval of this kind
over and over, as that has been the case in the past.