Sahar* was walking down a street in Tehran on a dark night not complying with the mandatory hijab rules when she was suddenly threatened at gunpoint.
Since the 1979 revolution, Iranian women have been legally required to wear the hijab, but in recent years, the crackdown has intensified.
“Like many other girls, I didn’t like to have a scarf around my neck. Some Basiji (a paramilitary volunteer militia in Iran controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) people were sitting, and when they saw me, they aimed a laser at me,” she told SBS.
“One of them took out a gun from his pocket and said either you will put the scarf on your head, or we will shoot you.
“I was scared, but I told myself, ‘No, it’s not the time to do this.'”
Sahar said she was on the streets for protests every day and has experienced suppression by the Iranian guards. Credit: SBS
The confrontation happened during Iran’s ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement, which was sparked two years ago by the death in custody of Mahsa Jina Amini.
She was a woman from Iran’s Kurdish minority arrested by the so-called morality police for allegedly not observing the country’s mandatory hijab laws.
‘We were all killed with Mahsa Amini’
Iranian authorities claim she suffered from an underlying health condition, but eyewitnesses say she was beaten inside the police van.
The UN’s Fact-Finding Mission on Iran has said that her death was “unlawful” and “caused by physical violence”.
Sara Hossain is the Chair of the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“She was killed in custody and this required, as warranted, an urgent inquiry by the Iranian government and, of course, action against those responsible,” Hossain told SBS.
“Despite there having been a number of investigative initiatives being taken by the Iranian government at the time … we’ve not actually seen any concrete action against those responsible or indeed findings regarding responsibility.
“We found on an analysis of the medical documentation … that there were significant injuries to her body.”
Hossain said the fact-finding mission also analysed video footage, including that of her inside a so-called morality classroom, which shows her collapsing to the floor, as well as footage and images of her held in hospital.
“We also analysed material regarding previous incidents of these kinds of arrests and looked at the patterns of violence against women in this situation,” Hossain said.
In reaction to the suspicious death of Amini, thousands of protesters took to the streets in cities all over Iran for months, chanting “Woman, Life Freedom” and calling for regime change.
Now in Australia, Sahar was one of these protesters who said, “enough is enough”.
“Mahsa was a human being for me, like many of us who had the same experiences, [she was] more than a symbol,” she said.
“She was not killed alone; we were all killed with Mahsa Amini.
“From the first day to the last [day of our life], we lived in fear in that country. Fear of assault and rape is the most common thing that an Iranian woman experiences on the street every day.”
According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), at least 537 people were killed by state security forces during the protests, and more than 19,000 were arrested.
In response to the protests, the Vice President of IRGC operations, Abbas Nilforoushan, said for protesters to achieve a regime change, “a sea of blood must be crossed”.
Sahar said she was on the streets for protests every day and had experienced suppression by the Iranian guards.
“I remember seeing a row of police guards who came, sat down with big guns and wanted to shoot us,” she said.
“This was one of the most frightening scenes I saw. I shouted with all my heart and told everyone to run away.
“The type of repression was different from the previous protests. It was very, very scary.”
‘An act of resistance’
Marzieh Mohebi, an Iranian women’s rights activist and former lawyer in exile who provides legal advice to women in Iran, believes that the hijab was only a “symbol of elimination” for protesters like Sahar.
“The hijab is not the main issue for Iranian women, but it symbolises their struggle,” Mohebi said.
“Symbolically, it was a means to cover all the oppressions that were done to them.
“Every woman leaving the house and leaving a strand of their hair out is showing an act of resistance.”
Two years after the uprising, human rights activists warn that the suppression continues.
Following the order of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that flouting hijab is religiously and politically forbidden, in April, authorities implemented the ‘Noor’ campaign, which translates to ‘light’.
It further intensified the crackdown on women with a new push to enforce the country’s mandatory hijab laws.
“The difficulty and the challenges for people inside Iran of being able to raise their grievances, speak about the violation of their rights and receive any response or redress for that, perhaps it’s a combination of all those factors that essentially sparked the protests that broke out after Jina Mahsa’s death and continued for months thereafter,” Hossain said.
“Protests still continue, albeit sporadically. We don’t see the large gatherings, but we do see people at tremendous risk to themselves and to their families continue to speak out in the hope of finding truth and accountability for what happened but also in the hope of ensuring rights for all people inside of Iran.”
Advocates and rights groups also say the crackdown by morality police is only intensifying.
“Morality police are still in the streets. There is still terror. Women who walk without hijab in the streets expect to be attacked at any moment,” Mohebi said.
“Women are really being threatened.
“But they continue. They don’t give up for a moment.”
‘I am worried about my friends’
According to Amnesty International, executions in Iran also started trending upward after the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement. There were at least 853 executions last year, the highest number in eight years.
It marks a 48 per cent increase from 2022 and a 172 per cent increase from 2021.
The Australia director at Human Rights Watch, Daniela Gavshon, said “the level of oppression remains very high” in Iran.
“We are seeing two things primarily; one is the re-arrest of protesters who were previously arrested and freed, and the other … is the arrest of family members of people who have died in protests previously and are now demanding accountability,” she said.
“There was recently a case where a 15-year-old child was sentenced to eight months in prison, he was picked up visiting the grave of his brother who had died in the protests.
“Security forces impunity has been rampant, there have been no investigations into the excessive use of force, to sexual abuse, to deaths, to anything that has happened as a result of the really violent crackdown on the protesters.”
The Australian government announced on Monday that in response to human rights violations in Iran, it has slapped targeted financial sanctions and travel bans on an additional five Iranian individuals.
The sanctioned individuals include high-ranking security and law enforcement officials who have been involved in the violent suppression of protests in Iran.
Though Sahar said she feels safer in Australia, she worries about those still in Iran.
“I felt I was betraying the people of Iran and those with whom we went to the streets,” she explained.
“I am worried about my friends. Iranian girls are fighting this system every day, and I know that I may wake up many nights and see that my friend or someone dear to me is no longer there.
“Every morning, the first thing I do is ask them how they are doing.”
*Identity protected
