Mick Hartley

The inspirational bravery of the women of Iran:

Iran’s regime faces its biggest protests in recent history, a new normal is sweeping across the country’s urban centres. Teenage girls and older women are increasingly taking to the streets without their headscarf, or hijab, bravely defying the mandatory requirement to cover their heads in public.

The death of Mahsa Amini, who was allegedly beaten in police custody for the inappropriate wearing of her headscarf, has prompted the biggest wave of dissent against strict religious dress codes since the turbulent early years of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Women and girls say they are determined to confront a ruling theocracy that once seemed unbreakable. The protests continued this weekend in city centres and university campuses more than 40 days after Amini’s death and even as the regime used bullets, tear gas and arrests to quell them.

In the city of Karaj, west of Tehran, Farnaz, a 15-year-old high school student, glares defiantly at the riot police with a confidence beyond her years as she strolls around the streets, her long dark hair flowing freely.

“The morality police tried to arrest me on a number of occasions but I am a fast runner and also am familiar with the different back streets, so every time I was approached by the guards I ran away quickly and was able to survive,” she said.

A 15-year-old girl!…

On the other side, IRGC Commander-in-Chief General Hossein Salami:

Hossein Salami: "To our dear youth I say: Be careful. You are being deceived. Nobody in this country will allow you to instigate insecurity, riots, and arson. Do not exploit the restraint shown by the regime. Do not toy with our people's patience. […]

"How is it that a small number of students have begun to echo foreigners? Dear students, return to the bosom of the [Iranian] people. Open your eyes and see the truth. Do not turn the universities into America's battlefield against our people. Come back, your path back is open. We want you [to show] moral virtue. What happened that made a small number of students – people who only look like students – voice slogans that use the most obscene language? […]

"Does freedom mean nudity? Does freedom mean trampling down the divine values and prohibitions? Does freedom mean promiscuity? The freedom that America promises the Iranian people is the same freedom it gave them in the days of the Shah: freedom to gamble, to drink wine, to engage in illegitimate relations, and to destroy morality. […]

"To the small number of our youth who have been deceived, we say: Put this evil aside. Today is the day these riots end. Do not take to the streets. What do you want from this people? […]

"This sinister plot was conceived by the thinktanks of the White House and the Zionist regime. The youth might tell us that our claim about this being an American plot is not true. No, dear [students]. Do not think that Biden must call you on the phone and tell you to take to the streets. You don't have to get a call from General Dempsey either, of McKenzie, or Benny Gantz, or Naftali Bennett, or [Yair] Lapid, or Bin Salman, who cut the body of that journalist [Khashoggi] to pieces and then dissolved it in acid. They do not contact you directly. They do this through their media outlets. They force you to confront your own society, your own public, and your own fighters. Pay attention. This sinister strife will bring you no good outcome. Do not ruin your future…."

No understanding; no compromise; no compassion – just rigid male authoritarianism, stupidity, and hatred.

If the system can't bend, it can only snap.