Time, in addition to the person of the year award, has awarded Iranian women the recognition of “heroines of the year”, for the protests that began almost three months ago, on September 16, following the death of the 22-year-old Kurdish Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the morality police due to a lock of hair protruding from the hijab, the mandatory Islamic veil in the Shiite-led Islamic Republic.
According to some analysts, the protests now involve 80% of the country and represent the greatest threat to the Islamic Republic since its establishment in 1979. Iranians are demanding both social and economic structural reforms, after years of crisis dragged down by sanctions that began with the pact for nuclear power plant (Jcpoe), which ran aground in 2018.
Undisputed protagonists of these protests, young Iranians of generation Z – underlines the American magazine – they live a life that is more and more “in contrast” with the ideological message of the Islamic Republic, between increasingly strong repression and US sanctions that have devastated the country’s economy while the system of power appears “paralysed” and “prefers international isolation”.
“Among the many reasons why the rebellion has been going on for so long is the stammering response of a government that acknowledges the legitimacy of the complaint. There are old revolutionary elites who have warned of a system that has completely lost its street, can no longer afford to subsidize its traditional social base, has alienated all others, including the religious, and has subordinated the well-being of its citizens to safety,” Time continues in its analysis.
“The movement they are leading is educated, liberal, secular, raised with greater expectations”, underlines the magazine, explaining that among the demands underlying the women’s protests there are “universities and trips abroad, decent jobs, the rule of law , access to the Apple Store, a significant role in politics, the freedom to say and wear anything.”
A photo of Mahsa Amini in Tehran, Iran
The protest that began with women then became increasingly massive and transversal. According to human rights NGOs there are almost 500 victims of the strong repression by the ayatollahs in power who consider the demonstrators “enemies of God”, a crime that leads to death penalty in effect in the country. Among the victims are many teenage heroines who were killed in the iron-fisted protests pasdaran and gods basej.
18,000 people have been arrested and about twenty sentences have already been handed down, in the face of incredulity and criticism from the international community, which is calling for respect for human and gender rights in the large Middle Eastern country.
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