More Than A Magazine, A Movement
After accepting an award for “distinguished doctor” while not wearing a veil, Iranian Dr. Fatemeh Rajaei-Rad was punished by having her medical license revoked, the president of the hospital where she worked was ousted, and authorities shut down her private practice and expelled her from the board of advisors at a medical university she had been a member of.
Despite crackdowns on mandatory veiling in the wake of Mahsa Amini’s killing, Iranian women continue to resist.
Mahsa Amini was just another woman in Iran who, despite following the rules, was still arrested, humiliated and punished.
Gola did not mean to predict the eruption of her native country into protests, violence and death when she sang “Haghameh” (“It’s my right”) a few months before the brutal killing of 22-year-old Iranian woman Mahsa Amini
The loss of our freedoms is mounting—from abortion rights, to lack of access to education, to being told what we must wear. The tragic death of Mahsa Amini connects us all at a time when it has never been more important to band together and push back against all forms of oppression.
That’s why, as feminists, we will stand with our sisters wherever there is a need—in Afghanistan, Iran, the DRC or here in the U.S. We know, in the end, we must prevail. There is no other choice.
He is in Tehran. I am in Baltimore. The separation is unbearable. Right now, I don’t even want an answer. I want a sign that means he’s alive, that he’s not dead, that the internet has been restored, that he hasn’t been arrested or beaten.
The death of the 22-year-old Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, at the hands of the “morality police” hasn’t just sparked spontaneous protests—it’s countrywide. Women are removing their headscarves and burning them because they are tired of being told what to do with their bodies. Men cheer them on, and some block the fists and batons crashing down on their sisters.
For almost two weeks, protests have been raging across Iran, triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was in custody of the morality police at the time of her death. Her alleged crime was not abiding by the country’s hijab rules.
Iranian human rights lawyer and long-time friend of Ms. magazine, Nasrin Sotoudeh has spent her career fighting for the rights of women and minorities in the Middle East. In a letter to Ms., Sotoudeh connected what’s happening with Iran to the global fight for women’s rights.
Protests have raging across Iran over the last week after the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman in the custody of the Islamic Republic’s morality police due to her defiance against the strict dress code. The country’s desperate effort to silence Iranian feminists has taken the form of violent responses and crackdowns of both in-person demonstrations and online activism.
Nasrin Sotoudeh is an Iranian human rights lawyer and activist who has consistently fought for the rights of women, children, religious minorities and others under persecution in Iran. Over the years, Sotoudeh has spent much of her time in prison, having been arrested for protesting Iran’s mandatory hijab law and resisting authoritarian rule. While in custody in 2022, Sotoudeh wrote to Ms. editors detailing the plight of women in Iran and called for global solidarity around women’s rights. Ms. executive editor Kathy Spillar spoke with Nasrin and her husband Reza Khandan last month.
“The world has gone through darker days. … We’ve made our way forward through those horrific and dark events and times, and so, why not again? As long as I’m alive, I’m just naturally an optimist.”
It’s been almost two years since the murder of 22-year-old Zhina “Mahsa” Amini made international headlines and sparked an uprising in Iran. All the while, the Kurdish words for “Woman, Life, Freedom” are still being chanted.
(This article originally appears in the Spring 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)
Each month, we provide Ms. readers with a list of new books being published by writers from historically excluded groups.
You can choose from an epic graphic memoir, a darling of a biography, collections of poignant essays and stories of 1950s India, Chinese-Canadian coming of age, star-crossed lovers in Cameroon or Korean stray cats.
