{"id":222052,"date":"2022-10-17T12:02:37","date_gmt":"2022-10-17T11:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=222052"},"modified":"2024-07-02T08:49:37","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T07:49:37","slug":"iran-the-evolving-symbols-of-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/10\/iran-the-evolving-symbols-of-protest\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran: The Evolving Symbols of Protest"},"content":{"rendered":"

14 Oct 2022 – <\/em>The cry “Women-Life-Liberty”<\/em> went up in many different parts of Iran.\u00a0 The protests began on September 13, 2022 at the announcement of the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Anini in police custody, having been arrested by the “morality police” for having some of her hair beyond the hijab (veil).\u00a0 She was an ethnic Kurd. The protests began in the Kurdish areas but soon spread to all ethnic groups and many parts of the country.<\/p>\n

Women have been a central focus of the social policy of the Islamic government.\u00a0 Even before coming to power in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini from his exile in France had said that the overly great liberty of women was a chief obstacle to his policies.\u00a0 Repressive policies against women with compulsory veiling laws were quickly put into place.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Guardian<\/p><\/div>\n

However, unlike the Taliban in Afghanistan, women have not been barred from higher education.\u00a0 It is estimated that some 65 per cent of university students are women.\u00a0 Many women play important roles within society but must keep a low profile, dress according to the dress code, and be under the control of a man, at least when visible in public.<\/p>\n

It is not possible to know in advance how strong the protests will become.\u00a0 There have been waves of protest in Iran before without bringing about major changes in government policy. Some observers believe that there is a new spirit in these protests and that they include people of more generations and social classes. The government is clearly worried.\u00a0 On October 3, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Guide, justified the repression being carried out by the police, the Revolutionary Guard and other paramilitary forces in a talk to the Military Academy.\u00a0 He said that the manifestations were the work of the U.S.A. and Israel.<\/p>\n

Protesters have been killed, an estimated 200 and others wounded.\u00a0 The number of arrests is unknown but probably high.\u00a0 Journalists have been prevented from reporting, and internet services have been cut or are irregular. Thus there are few photos of the demonstrations.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

BBC<\/p><\/div>\n

The first symbols of the protests were on the restrictions on women.\u00a0 Hijabs were taken off and some were publicly burned.\u00a0 Scissors were used to cut off a segment of hair.\u00a0 Men were involved in the protests from the start, as were persons of different generations.\u00a0 Secondary school students have been increasingly active.\u00a0 Niha Shahkarami, a 16 year-old girl high school student killed by the police has become the symbol of the fight of this young generation.\u00a0 Increasingly, the symbolic themes of the protests are shifting from a focus on the restrictions on women to the nature of the clerical regime itself.\u00a0 The newly elected conservative president Ebrahim Raissi is called into question.\u00a0 Ayatollah Khamenei is aged and not well.\u00a0 There is no obvious replacement should he die.\u00a0 The situation in Iran merits to be watched closely.<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Ren\u00e9 Wadlow is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a><\/em>. He <\/em>is President of the Association of World Citizens, an international peace organization with consultative status with ECOSOC, the United Nations organ facilitating international cooperation and problem-solving in economic and social issues, and editor of <\/em>Transnational Perspectives.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

14 Oct 2022 – The themes of the protests are shifting from the restrictions on women to the clerical regime itself. Ayatollah Khamenei is aged and not well. There is no obvious replacement should he die. The situation in Iran merits to be watched closely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":194731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[742,1378],"class_list":["post-222052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-iran","tag-protests"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222052"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265924,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222052\/revisions\/265924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}