Mahsa Amini was a 22-year-old Iranian woman, she was at Tehran’s train station with her brother when suddenly, she was caught by the morality police because her hijab wasn’t worn properly resulting in showing parts of her hair The Guardian. The police took her away and detained her in a “re-education center”, however in reality, the police had beaten her so much; that she died three days later.

After that shocking news, The Iranian people were enraged as they protested down the street, women burning their hijabs, and cutting their hair. “In many cities, including Tehran, the capital, security forces responded by opening fire on the crowds. On Boulevard Ferdous and at the Shahrak Ekbatan apartment complex in Tehran, officers fired at windows; in the city of Rasht, they threw tear gas into apartments, according to witnesses and videos on social media.” The New York Times.  People also took the opportunity to take videos of the protests and post them on social media, therefore the government has cut off internet access in order to limit the spread of this incident.

This is not the first time this has happened. Iranians have been rebelling against their government since the 80s. the revolution that brought down the Shah’s regime and invited an authoritarian Islamic republic. “The Iranian Revolution of 1977-79 was the first in a series of mass popular civil insurrections which would result in the overthrow of authoritarian regimes in dozens of countries over the next three decades. Unlike most of the other uprisings that would topple dictators in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and parts of Asia and Africa, the result of the Iranian struggle was not the establishment of liberal democracy but of a new form of authoritarianism.” International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.

To this day in the year 2022, It is unbelievable that this much violence has to occur just because people want basic human rights. Wearing a hijab should be a choice, not a law. Some might think this is just another case of the hijab being a symbol of oppression, but in reality, this is a fight for freedom of choice.

In our community, I have a friend who is Iranian, and she says “I, as an Iranian have to worry about getting arrested whenever I go visit my family during the summer. Since the internet has been cut off, my parents and I can’t even contact them on WhatsApp.”