(Istanbul) “Even those who have fled to another country live in fear”: like Rara, a hundred Iranians, smoked glasses and mouths barred with black, as if sewn, demonstrated Thursday in Istanbul in support of the women of their country struggling against the Tehran regime.
Posted at 1:03 p.m.
“Look, everyone is wearing dark glasses and a mask,” says Rara, a 27-year-old Iranian architect and influencer who prefers to keep her name quiet.
Every day now since the death of the young Mahsa Amini at the hands of the Iranian morality police, demonstrators – men and women – find themselves, more or less numerous, in front of the Iranian consulate in Istanbul in the conservative district of Fatih, with the desire to believe that this time it’s the right one.
“They always threatened us, in Iran they said they would kill us if we protested. All Iranians who have left the country live in fear. They are looking for us and threatening to kill our families,” Rara points out.
In Turkey, which shares a border with Iran to the east, assassinations of Iranian opponents and incursions by the security services are not uncommon.
“Many did not come, because of this fear”, adds the young woman, open jacket on a tattooed rose between the breasts, the bare belly, tattooed too. Arrived from Iran in Turkey for her studies of architecture eight years ago, she never left.
“They have been threatening us for 40 years and no one can protest. But this time, the whole world hears us” Rara wants to convince herself by brandishing the portrait of the young 22-year-old Kurd, who died shortly after her arrest, for having contravened the dress codes of the mullahs.
“They killed Mahsa Amini by banging her head against the walls: blood was flowing from her ears. That’s why I painted (mine) red, like they were bleeding,” she explains.
“When I was at university there, I was constantly in trouble: my hair badly covered, my tattoos, my painted nails… You could go to prison for listening to music, or attending a party . Or be whipped”.
“But we are here. You will never silence us. If you kill me, the voices of other girls will take over,” she says.
“This dictator, these brutes must leave” she continues about President Ebrahim Raïsi and the authorities whose repression has already caused dozens of deaths in the ranks of demonstrators in Iran.