Some people shake up history with their actions or their words. Others make it deviate from its course, without even knowing it. By her death, Mahsa Amini shook the Khamenei regime in Iran like no one else had done before her. Whether or not the death of the 22-year-old Kurd leads to the overthrow of the Ayatollahs’ regime, it will surely mark the Iranian timeline.
“Mahsa Amini’s name probably refers to the greatest human rights revolution of our time,” said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the organization Iran Human Rights, which has documented human rights violations for 17 years. in Iran. In an interview from Oslo, the neuroscientist also predicts that this tragic event will have an impact on the emancipation of women beyond Iranian borders.
“Millions of women around the world are treated like second-class citizens and this ‘apartheid’ has been tolerated and normalized in the name of culture and tradition,” he denounces. Once the Iranian revolt movement has triumphed – which Mr. Amiry-Moghaddam says he is convinced – it will mark the beginning of the end of this “apartheid” in several parts of the world, he believes.
Kindling
For not wearing her veil properly, Mahsa Amini, originally from Iranian Kurdistan, was arrested on September 13, 2022 by the morality police, while she was on vacation in Tehran with her family. Taken to a detention center after being beaten – according to witnesses – by the agents, she died three days later, galvanizing the rage of thousands of Iranians who have since demonstrated in the streets of the Islamic Republic.
But why did this event — and not so many others like it — create this conflagration? “I think it was the last straw, analyzes Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. Millions of Iranians identify with Mahsa, a young woman who just wanted to live a normal life, but resisted. Erected as a symbol of the oppression of women and ethnic minorities in the country of the ayatollahs, Mahsa Amini has struck fear among thousands of Iranians who “continue to protest despite the massive violence that the regime uses”.
For the director of Iran Human Rights, the question is no longer whether the revolt movement will succeed in bringing down the regime, but rather “how much suffering and human lives will it take”. Because going back is no longer possible, he believes. “The Iranians say they will never go back to the time before Mahsa’s death,” said Mr. Amiry-Moghaddam. A time when “the most private aspects of Iranian life — what they think, what they do, what they say, what they wear — are controlled.”
A mined road
However, the road will be long and extremely arduous. “We are fully aware that we are in the presence of a regime that can go really far [dans la répression] to cling to power”, denounces the defender of human rights.
A regime which has already begun to raise its voice to put down the revolt: after thousands of arrests and sham trials, public executions of demonstrators have begun in the last few days. According to Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the reaction of Iranians and the international community will be critical in the coming weeks. “If these reactions become stronger and stronger, [chaque fois qu’une exécution a lieu], maybe we can prevent the crimes committed in the 1980s, ”he breathes. A time when political prisoners had been executed by the thousands by the Khamenei regime…