By Pishtaz | 2023-09-12

Last September 16, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini of Saqqez in Iran's Kordestan province died in "morality police" custody after being detained on a Tehran street during a trip to visit relatives.

Amini was arrested as she allegedly did not adhere to the state-mandated dress code, the most important part of which is wearing a headscarf.

Her death sparked the most widespread protests across the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. They were initially led by women, and mostly over women's personal freedoms and rights.

On Saturday (September 9), Amini's parents said they would hold a ceremony for the first anniversary of their daughter's death at her gravesite.

Over the past year, women of all ages have expressed outrage toward the regime on an unprecedented scale over its head-covering mandate, which became law shortly after the Islamic Republic was founded in 1979.

A number of young women have followed Shia clerics on the streets and made them aware that they object to their presence, in some cases, by removing the clerics' turbans.

Many celebrities, especially women, have supported the movement on social media.

Some have appeared in public, attended ceremonies, or even made speeches bareheaded. A few have been arrested and released on bail within a short time, and the regime has not taken serious action in response to every celebrity figure's anti-establishment action.

However, some popular artists, including singers who have supported the movement in their songs, have been threatened or imprisoned for taking a stand against mandatory hair covering.

Although the protests have diminished in recent months in the face of the regime's brutal crackdown, they have had a strong and abiding effect on the mandated dress code for women in Iran.

Symbol of resistance

Immediately after Amini's body was laid to rest in her hometown, a sign was placed on her burial site, which read, in Kurdish: "You haven't died; your name will become a symbol."

Her name indeed has become a symbol of anti-regime resistance and defiance, swelling into a major movement dubbed "Women, Life, Freedom," which rapidly found supporters around the globe.

The overwhelming number of women who have refused to continue covering their hair has left the regime in a bind, and observers say it appears to be on alert as the first anniversary of Amini's death looms.

For months, women took to the streets to stand for their rights.

Security forces' oppressive measures against them extended to blatantly targeting women's faces, breasts and genitals, and blinding a number of them by shooting directly at their eyes.

"Women have been very courageous in defying mandatory headscarves, and many men have been quite supportive," said a 42-year-old woman who lives in a relatively wealthy suburb of Tehran, and did not wish to be named.

"In my neighborhood, most women, especially those who are younger, appear bareheaded in public, and it's almost strange to see someone wearing a headscarf these days," she told Pishtaz.

"This is not limited to the suburbs, and is, to a large extent, true in Tehran and other major cities, in schools and universities, shopping malls, stores and parks," she said.

Suppression of elite, minorities

The regime has implemented drastic measures in response to the protests and acts of civil disobedience in recent months, evidently in efforts to prevent further protests as the movement's first anniversary approaches.

Last year's protests spread to schools and universities, prompting the government to temporarily close them to control the students' uprising.

The Iranian government has fired dozens of academics in the past few weeks, demonstrating the establishment's fear of the power that universities in particular have in driving the uprising, observers say.

The amount of pressure the Islamic Republic is putting on the elite and minorities is rare, they say, noting that it is rooted in the regime's fear of the public's rage and the elite's actions.

The Islamic Republic has historically suppressed the country's ethnic and religious minorities, and has cracked down particularly harshly on the Kurdish community -- a double minority as it is also Sunni in a majority Shia country.

Since last year, however, the oppressive methods have been cruel and excessive, as several rights organizations and activists have pointed out.

As Amini was Kurdish, her death, and the way she was killed, had a strong effect on her fellow Kurds, who continued active protests for months. After a year, though sporadic, the protests are ongoing, as is the brutal crackdown.

Death 'won't be in vain'

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) repeatedly attacked communities of Iranian Kurds based in Iraq in November as it accused them of fomenting public protests in Iran.

The regime also has cracked down on the Bahai community. Among the actions it took was issuing, in November, new 10-year prison sentences for two prominent Bahai activists.

Mahvash Sabet, 69, and Fariba Kamalabadi, 60, both have previously served 10-year prison terms over their activism. The women were arrested in late July at the start of a fresh crackdown on the Bahai, who number about 300,000 in Iran.

Ali, a Kurdish dentist who lives in Iran's Mahabad, said the regime is afraid of the Kurds and their power, and that is why it has systematically oppressed them.

"Regardless of the regime's actions, neither the Kurdish community nor, since last year, the majority of the country is afraid," Ali told Pishtaz.

"We will not bow to the Islamic Republic and will continue to show our dissent as Mahsa's death anniversary gets close," he said. "We won't let her down. To us, she is a martyr. We won't let her death be in vain."