Say Her Name, Mahsa Amini

Suddenly, my For You page was full of women and men cutting their hair off and shaving their heads. Women were in the street burning hijabs. I would soon realize it because of a tragedy. Mahsa Amini was a beautiful 22-year-old Kurdish woman murdered while in the custody of the Iranian morality police for an alleged violation of the country's strict dress code. Her hajib was not proper, and she had been arrested and beaten. This is 2022, and a woman is being killed by authorities for how she dressed?! Think about that for a moment.

There have been huge protests, and Mahsa's untimely and unjust death has become a cultural tipping point for Iran. The government is cutting the internet to their people and the outside world. Before 1979, Iran looked very different. It was the most progressive of all the middle eastern countries until the government slid into theocracy. As with most theocratic governments, women pay the heaviest price. The press is censtored as well. For example the reporter who first reported Amini's death, Niloufar Hamedi, is now in solitary confinement, with no information about the charges against her. At least 18 journalists before have been arrested since the demonstrations began, according a Mother Jones article written by Samatha Michaels yesterday. However, whether one lives in a theocracy or a democracy women still don't have the same rights afforded to men. We deserve the same rights and respect as men. We deserve to wear what we want and expect not to be killed for it. Spread the word and say her name. Let's support our Iranian Sisters as they fight for basic freedoms.

For more information on her story, check out this NPR article and link to The Center For Human Rights Iran article, from which the above-shown picture of Mahsa Amini came from.

https://iranhumanrights.org/2022/09/mahsa-amini-is-another-victim-of-islamic-republics-war-on-women/