4 December 1–7, 2022 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Month XX–Month XX, 2014 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER | Classified | MusiC | dish | Movies | Culture | Night+day | feature | sChutze | uNfair Park | CoNteNts | Freedom Fighting from Afar IranIan women In north texas shIne a lIght on the brutalIty of theIr former government. by Kelly Dearmore O n Sunday, Nov. 20, under an af- ternoon sky streaked with clouds, hundreds of marchers made their way down Lower Greenville Avenue. Large, col- orful signs displayed “Women Life Free- dom,” #FreeIran, #JusticeForIran and “Stand With Iranian Women.” On the same day, half a world away in the Iranian capital of Tehran, marches were also taking place. Swarms of protesters shouted “Death to the dictator” and chanted “Free- dom! Freedom! Freedom!” and “College stu- dents rather die than live in infamy.” Similar dramatic scenes have played out recently in Berlin, Los Angeles and Lon- don, among many other major cities. Along with the Greenville Avenue gathering, sev- eral well-attended demonstrations took place in North Texas as October rolled into November. Aside from the nature of the messaging, there’s another uniquely specific element to the signage among the throngs and these protests aimed at the Iranian government: the name Mahsa Amini. Amini, 22, died in a Tehran hospital on Sept. 16 after being detained by Iran’s guid- ance patrol, often referred to as the morality police. Amini, who also went by Jina, was taken into custody for allegedly violating the hijab rule, the Muslim edict requiring women to cover their heads with a scarf, as she visited the capital city along with her family. The Iranian government has stated Amini died after suffering a heart attack while in custody, but her family and much of the Iranian population dispute that claim and are convinced her death was something much more brutal. Pictures and video show Amini in a hospital bed with bruising to her face and bleeding from her head, suggesting she endured a significant amount of physical trauma after she was arrested. As word of Amini’s death spread around Tehran, protests rang out with impressive strength and efficiency. Many of the women marching made a point to not cover their heads, and in some cases they cut their hair in another defiant act against what they see as their government’s repeated oppression of them. Iranian forces descended upon the crowds, initiating a ferocious crackdown that would continue for days, resulting in numerous beatings and shootings, thou- sands of arrests and a reported 17 deaths in the span of a single week. By Nov. 14, follow- ing almost two months of protests, more than 300 people had died during the dem- onstrations, as Iran announced it had sen- tenced an unnamed protester to death for their alleged role in a government building fire during a protest. Amnesty International says that many more protesters are in danger of being sen- tenced to death by the Revolutionary Courts in Tehran for their roles in the uprising. It has also been reported that 58 children, some of them as young as 8, have been killed by police since the protests began. The images, videos and headlines have stoked the passions of Iranians around the world, as well as the global media and the public in a way that’s reminiscent of the famed Arab Spring of more than a decade ago. Protests directed at the Iranian govern- ment are certainly not a new thing, with widespread protests taking place on a fairly regular basis. | unfAiR pARk | Mahgameh Parvanehzip >> p6 Hundreds gathered in downtown Dallas on Oct. 1 to protest human rights abuses in Iran.
