On September 16, 2022, a 22-year-old woman named Mahsa Amini, also known as Jina Amini was brutally tortured and murdered by the Iranian Morality Police.
The Morality Police in Iran enforce public morality on behalf of national or regional authorities and they are somewhat new. However, they are structured only by impulse. Morality Police can do whatever they want strictly on impulse and it seems their main targets are women.
Mahsa Amini was asked to move over by the morality police because they thought there was a problem with her hijab. However, there is speculation that she got arrested because her jeans were “too tight.” Unfortunately, Amini died in the hospital from serious injuries after being held by the police.
The death of Mahsa Amini sparked a global conversation. The people of Iran have started to protest. They’re screaming “Women, Life, Freedom,” cutting their hair to show a sign of mourning and trying to amplify their voices. Yet, the morality police have guns, batons, tasers, etc., and use their abusive power against the people to beat, torture, and kill them. The morality police are killing more Iranians every day during these protests – mostly women. They are not only murdering innocent people though. In the name of Islam, the morality police can’t kill a woman if she’s a virgin. So, they are raping these innocent women to kill them.
Forty-three years ago, women in Iran had the choice of wearing a hijab or not. Now, it is the law for women to wear one. This past year, Roe v. Wade was overturned in the United States, so the choice of legal abortion care goes to the states. This is a global epidemic. Women just want their fundamental human rights back. The women in Iran just want their hair to be shown in the sun.
Yet, why haven’t we talked about the crisis in Iran? It’s been going on for 40 days and the protesting just got to the front page of the New York Times. Why aren’t we publicizing this? Why is the media so Biased?
In an opinion piece by Hossein Ronaghi, he claims that western media isn’t telling us the truth about Iran. He wrote this piece a year ago and it’s still relevant today, but not getting the recognition it deserves.
In an autobiography by Marjane Satrapi called “Perspolis,” (which is banned in Texas and Pennsylvania, the land of freedom of speech), she recalls being a kid in 1979 under the leader, Ruhollah Khomeini. Satrapi wrote this memoir 20 years ago and contains a lot of detail about the struggles women have to endure in Iran from gender equality, repression, war, education and so much more. So, there isn’t a lack of content out there about Iran, but this stuff isn’t being out in the news cycle and getting recognition.
We need to start talking about this. We need to spread Jina Amini’s name. We need to use our media to spread information. We need western media to start spreading the truth about Iran and help these women fight for their basic human rights. As we, the women in America fight for our basic human rights. We need to start caring about these women the same way we cared about Roe v. Wade being overturned. The only difference is we’re not getting raped and murdered like the women in Iran are for refusing to wear a piece of clothing.
