Iranian women’s rights movement faces brutal retaliation from government

A 23-year-old lady reached out to me, a medical skilled, in search of recommendation. “I’m not afraid of them killing me,” she mentioned, referring to the torture and rape that women and men endure in Iranian prisons. “What I’m afraid of is what they’ll do to me in captivity. What tablet can I take to finish it [if I’m caught at the protests]?” As a doctor, my oath is to save lots of lives, however on this scenario, saving a life may imply giving a 23-year-old recommendation on learn how to commit suicide. I took a deep breath and cried.

The most important girls’s rights motion of our century is at present occurring in Iran. It started with the brutal homicide of Jina Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian lady, by the morality police. Amini was overwhelmed right into a coma for “inappropriately” carrying her hijab and died two days later. This occasion grew to become a turning level in Iran, the place men and women have been now not prepared to tolerate the violence of their oppressors. Many individuals assume the motion is just about carrying a hijab, but it surely’s about rather more than that.

Why have Iranians risen in opposition to their authorities? Iranians have a “Westernized” mind-set. Earlier than the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which introduced the dictator Khomeini to energy, girls had most of the identical freedoms as males. Below Khomeini’s rule, nonetheless, the regime’s focus grew to become the destruction of human rights and the focused oppression of ladies. Abruptly, it grew to become unlawful to take heed to music, dance, sing, go to concert events, or take pleasure in any of the easy pleasures in life. Girls weren’t allowed to indicate their pores and skin or hair, experience a bicycle, or attend sporting occasions. They misplaced all authorized custody rights to their youngsters, the power to divorce, and the power to journey overseas with out the approval of their husband or father. They grew to become prisoners of their gender, compelled to dwell underneath a conservatorship. Moreover, collaborating in these “unlawful” actions grew to become punishable by lashes, imprisonment, and/or demise by execution, with imprisonment involving probably the most heinous types of punishment together with infinite solitary confinement, torture, and rape.

The brutality of the regime is unimaginable. Below their rule, it’s unlawful to execute a virgin lady. Subsequently, she is raped the evening earlier than her execution. In an interview with The Jerusalem Submit, a Revolutionary Guard mentioned, “I may inform that the women have been extra afraid of [that] evening than of the execution that awaited them. [During the rape], they might all the time struggle again. By [the] morning, the women would have an empty expression; it appeared like they have been prepared or wished to die.”

The Supreme Chief’s theological textual content, “Tahrir Al-Wasilah,” condones and promotes horrifying acts, together with pedophilia. It explains which sexual acts can and can’t be carried out on a woman previous to the age of 9. Learning this textual content is remitted and examined previous to entry into college. Thankfully, the liberal mentality of the mother and father of those youth has largely prevented the regime’s try at brainwashing them.

Quickly after the Revolution of 1979, the federal government executed 30,000 individuals. These executions have continued over the previous 43 years, with no less than one prisoner being executed per day. These prisoners embrace artists, journalists, athletes, attorneys, and activists who’ve spoken out in opposition to the regime. The Iranian individuals are captives in their very own nation, and the Islamic Republic has been killing and emigrating probably the most good minds in a failed try to stop the opportunity of a profitable revolution.

What has been occurring in Iran throughout this girls’s rights motion? Iranians, notably these of their teenagers to 30s, have been peacefully protesting. The bravery of the youth has been deeply inspirational, notably because the Islamic Republic has been making an attempt to silence them utilizing brutal measures, together with poisoning their meals and water, committing genocides of ethnic minorities utilizing machine weapons, capturing protestors with pellets (particularly aiming to blind them), capturing girls within the breast and genitals as a type of inhumane humiliation, driving navy automobiles over protestors, and abducting, raping, and killing them. The regime has already killed over 500 people (together with 69 youngsters) and has imprisoned over 18,000. Lots of these launched are dying inside 48 hours as a consequence of intentional overdoses of intravenous acetaminophen, which is run previous to discharge. These deaths are being documented as “demise by suicide.”

In jail, captives endure probably the most atrocious types of torture possible, together with the regime’s egregious use of rape as an influence instrument to subdue their victims. This crime is being dedicated indiscriminate of gender or intercourse. One teenage boy said that he and his associates have been electrocuted and raped for protesting. Nikka Shahkarami, a queer 16-year-old lady, was captured and endured related torture and violation by the hands of the regime for 10 days earlier than being thrown off a constructing to her demise. Her funeral fell on the day of her seventeenth birthday.

The brutality of this regime constantly evolves in horrific methods. They’ve begun public executions of protestors by hanging. Two 23-year-old males have been executed simply final week. People akin to Dr. Aida Rostami, a doctor with Medical doctors With out Borders, have been kidnapped and tortured to demise for treating wounded protestors. Her physique was found with fractured extremities, a traumatic cranium, and an empty eye socket. The regime claims she died in a automobile accident.

The Islamic Republic is committing main human rights violations, and reviews of the 400+ recorded deaths fail to account for the regime’s acetaminophen overdoses and the “silent executions” which were ongoing for many years. These have continued with out acknowledgment or protection. The demise toll can also be underestimated as a consequence of demise threats obtained by sufferer’s households in the event that they discuss their family members’ homicide. This week, the mom of a 14-year-old lady, who was violated and murdered by the regime, was kidnapped quickly after talking up. She remains to be lacking.

Montreh Tavakkoli is a hematology-oncology fellow.