Two Iranian journalists, Niloofar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi, both in their 20s, face life imprisonment. your crime? They were among the first to tell the story of Mahsa Amini – another 22-year-old who died on September 16 from wearing an “inappropriate” veil in the Islamic Republic.
The two journalists were accused a few days ago of working for the CIA, that is, of being spies paid by the United States, the number one enemy of the Iranian theocracy. The absurdity of the charges speaks volumes about the panic and vengeance at the heart of the regime. As with any internal difficulty, we bring out the well-worn discourse of external manipulation. The revolt provoked by the death of Mahsa Amini has not yet completely shaken the Islamic Republic – and revealed the true nature of that regime.
Mahsa, who was visiting Tehran with her parents, was arrested on September 13 by the “morality police” because a strand of hair was sticking out of her veil. Imprisoned for three days, she will not survive the fate reserved for her. She was transported to the hospital in a deep coma and died on September 16.
Also read: Mahsa Amini’s death in Iran: Demonstrations marking the 40th anniversary of the young woman’s death
Almost 300 dead
Since then, Iran has been in turmoil. From city to city in this vast country of 85 million people, the regime is challenged daily. Youth, school and university stand in the streets and face the repressive machinery of the theocracy in power. With the sympathy of a large part of the public, the movement has been going on for almost six weeks – demonstrations that are repeated day after day. The Islamic Republic has rarely experienced such a long dispute.
She faces a revolt against the imposed gray of an “Islamic” order that obliges women to wear a veil in a certain way and not another. Risking their lives, Iranian women burn, tear, tear this obligatory veil. Power is responding as it always has – by repressing: nearly 300 dead to date, including 20 teenagers; thousands injured; about 14,000 arrests.
The Islamic Republic that emerged from the 1979 revolution has long since lost all originality of a regime that, exceptionally in the region, left room for political debates in its early days. Over the years, lawsuits and wars (often imposed from outside, that’s true), the Islamic Republic has become a military tyranny. 1999, 2009, 2017, 2019, to every challenge – political, economic or social – she has only one answer: she kills. In the columns of our colleague Le 1, the political scientist Farhad Khosrokhavar speaks of “thanatocracy”: a regime that “intends to rule through death and through the fear of killing”.
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