On 16th September, 2022, the death was announced of a young Kurdish/Iranian woman, generally now known as Mahsa Amini. Her Kurdish name was Jina (meaning life) Amini. (Iranian citizens cannot legally register any names not of Persian or Islamic origin). Her death appeared to be linked to her earlier arrest by Iran’s morality police for not wearing her hijab (head covering) correctly. She had been taken into morality police custody. Other women there later reported that she had been beaten, to the extent that she collapsed and was taken to hospital. Upon arrival, doctors discovered that she was already ‘brain dead’. Two days later, she suffered a cardiac arrest and was unable to be resuscitated.
This is a photograph of Mahsa Amini. Her name has become the rallying cry for Iranian protest against the régime in Iran, led by Ayatollah Khamenei.
This is a photograph of Mahsa Amini. Her name has become the rallying cry for Iranian protest against the régime in Iran, led by Ayatollah Khamenei.
Jin, Jayan, Azadi/Zan, Zengedi, Azadi/Woman, Life, Freedom
Above are her names, in Kurdish, Farsi and English. At Jîna’s funeral, women removed their hijabs and began chanting “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî”, Woman, Life, Freedom. Use of this slogan started in the Kurdish part of Iran after Mahsa Amini’s death. The slogan is not new. It was first used during the Kurdish feminist resistance movements in the late 20th century. It had historical ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its women’s military wing, the YJA STAR. In English, and in many other languages, “Woman, Life, Freedom” has become the signature slogan of the protests in Iran, which eventually more or less ended in March 2023.
Her death sparked off outrage and protests first in her home town, Saqqez, then spread through the Iranian province of Kurdistan and then throughout the rest of Iran, under the Jin, Jiyan, Azadi slogan. The Iranian government responded with tear gas and gunfire aimed at protesters, then with Internet blackouts and restrictions of social media. Yet he slogan quickly spread around the world.
Demonstrations, which were initially aimed at abolishing compulsory hijab laws, started to call for the end of Khamenei's régime in Iran. Overnight, protestors went from taking off their headscarves to burning them; from tearing down portraits of Khamenei to shouting words taken to mean “Death to the Oppressor” , in the streets. The Farsi word used "marg" can translate to "death," but "marg bar" translates to "Down with", as you can see in the lead photo for a Guardian article, in 2017, "Iranians turn out in force for rallies after call for Trump response"
Her death sparked off outrage and protests first in her home town, Saqqez, then spread through the Iranian province of Kurdistan and then throughout the rest of Iran, under the Jin, Jiyan, Azadi slogan. The Iranian government responded with tear gas and gunfire aimed at protesters, then with Internet blackouts and restrictions of social media. Yet he slogan quickly spread around the world.
Demonstrations, which were initially aimed at abolishing compulsory hijab laws, started to call for the end of Khamenei's régime in Iran. Overnight, protestors went from taking off their headscarves to burning them; from tearing down portraits of Khamenei to shouting words taken to mean “Death to the Oppressor” , in the streets. The Farsi word used "marg" can translate to "death," but "marg bar" translates to "Down with", as you can see in the lead photo for a Guardian article, in 2017, "Iranians turn out in force for rallies after call for Trump response"
World-wide support
One of the most striking things about this protest movement has been the support it has found round the world. There is, of course, a large Iranian diaspora, scattered throughout a number of countries. Hence Mahsa Amini’s image has been shown in variety. Here, in Sydney, Australia.
Below, in Mexico City.
In Turkish Kurdistan.
Major Iranian artist Shirin Neshat, not living in Iran, created 'Woman Life Freedom' in lights.
'Femme Vie Liberté' lit up in Paris, on the Eiffel Tower.
From Madrid, Spain and the Movement for Peace
And from Granada, Spain
Kurdistan extends across a number of countries. The image below is from Rojava, a Kurdish region in Syria, which has a large resistance movement.
What's with the Hijab?
Wearing, or not, of the hijab, which is simply a religious requirement, has been highly politicised in Iran for a long time. In 1936 Reza Shah (King) Pahlavi tried to stop women from wearing the hijab, in a bid to modernise Iran. This infuriated the religious establishment and also alienated many women. When Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile, he fiercely enforced the wearing of the hijab as a political as well as a religious issue. Thus, while anti-hijab protests have been led by women in Iran, many men have supported them, as has happened during the recent protests.
Some images of street protests have become iconic, especially of women showing total defiance of the hijab and other oppressive laws. Their call is for freedom.
Wearing, or not, of the hijab, which is simply a religious requirement, has been highly politicised in Iran for a long time. In 1936 Reza Shah (King) Pahlavi tried to stop women from wearing the hijab, in a bid to modernise Iran. This infuriated the religious establishment and also alienated many women. When Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile, he fiercely enforced the wearing of the hijab as a political as well as a religious issue. Thus, while anti-hijab protests have been led by women in Iran, many men have supported them, as has happened during the recent protests.
Some images of street protests have become iconic, especially of women showing total defiance of the hijab and other oppressive laws. Their call is for freedom.
‘They used our hijabs to gag us’: Iran protesters tell of rapes, beatings and torture by police. Defiantly, women burned their hijabs in public.
Artist Touraj Saberivand, moved by the hijab-burning bravery, created images based on traditional Persian book painting to illustrate the Mahsa Amini protest movement, and posted them on Twitter. She wrote of the image below: “Woman with hijab on stick. I made this plan in conjunction with the protests against the mandatory hijab.” Photograph by the artist.
Other artists have used images from famous paintings. The Iranian graphic designer Jalz is a strong supporter of the protesters. His artwork combines the Azadi (Freedom) tower, a monument in Azadi Square in Tehran, Iran, with Matisse’s dancers and the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ slogan. Art and photograph below by Jalz.
There's even an Iranian Rosie the Riveter.
Here's the original one. Painted by Norman Rockwell, Rosie the Riveter first appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, a popular American magazine, in 1943, during World War 2. She has tied her hair back for safety in the factory. Iranian Rosie has thrown off her hijab and freed her hair.
What is the significance of women's hair in Iran?
One of the most striking acts of protest by women in Iran has been to cut their hair. For many Iranian women, cutting off their hair, which must be hidden in public in the Islamic Republic, is a poignant form of protest. According to Shara Atashi, a writer and translator, women cutting their hair is an ancient Persian tradition “when the fury is stronger than the power of the oppressor.”
The practice is cited in Shahnameh, a 1,000-year-old Persian epic. In more than one instance through the work, hair is pulled in an act of mourning. Thus after the hero Siyavash is killed, his wife Farangis and the girls accompanying her cut their hair to protest injustice. “The moment we have been waiting for has come. Politics fueled by poetry.” Atashi told CNN: “Cutting hair is itself a ceremony of mourning to better expose the depth of suffering at the loss of a loved one.” And in today’s context, she adds, it is a sign of “protest against the killing of our people.”
One of the most striking acts of protest by women in Iran has been to cut their hair. For many Iranian women, cutting off their hair, which must be hidden in public in the Islamic Republic, is a poignant form of protest. According to Shara Atashi, a writer and translator, women cutting their hair is an ancient Persian tradition “when the fury is stronger than the power of the oppressor.”
The practice is cited in Shahnameh, a 1,000-year-old Persian epic. In more than one instance through the work, hair is pulled in an act of mourning. Thus after the hero Siyavash is killed, his wife Farangis and the girls accompanying her cut their hair to protest injustice. “The moment we have been waiting for has come. Politics fueled by poetry.” Atashi told CNN: “Cutting hair is itself a ceremony of mourning to better expose the depth of suffering at the loss of a loved one.” And in today’s context, she adds, it is a sign of “protest against the killing of our people.”
Women protesters outside Iran started cutting their hair too.
In Istanbul a woman has cut great swathes of her hair off.
Since the key issue of the protests was women keeping their hair covered, seeing actual hair cutting made an enormous impact round the world. Images based on hair cutting proliferated.
Hair cutting imagery
Images of hair cutting and hair flowing in the wind of freedom, often with the slogan Woman, Life, Freedom in a variety of languages, have appeared on walls, in tweets/X, on Instagram. They have appeared as playing cards and cartoons. They have been made by brilliant Iranian artists who have found refuge in other countries, and have been made by sympathetic artists of all nationalities. Out of the enormous variety, I have made as broad a selection as possible.
Below is a hair cutting poster publicizing a protest meeting in San Francisco.
Hair cutting imagery
Images of hair cutting and hair flowing in the wind of freedom, often with the slogan Woman, Life, Freedom in a variety of languages, have appeared on walls, in tweets/X, on Instagram. They have appeared as playing cards and cartoons. They have been made by brilliant Iranian artists who have found refuge in other countries, and have been made by sympathetic artists of all nationalities. Out of the enormous variety, I have made as broad a selection as possible.
Below is a hair cutting poster publicizing a protest meeting in San Francisco.
Employing a familiar visual register, artist Mahdieh Farhadkiaei adapted her usually provocative playing card designs to show a lone queen taking a pair of scissors to her hair – an image that went viral on Instagram, being especially shared by non-Iranians.
Cartoonist Mana Neyestani produced a dynamic image, seen on Instagram, showing men foregrounding a woman leader with her hair clenched in her fist.
Images often showed wonderfully weaponised hair. Below Iranian-Dutch designer Sara Emami is combing those men right out of her hair.
Cartoonist Nasrin Sheykhi makes short work of Khamenei.
The Supreme Leader Khamenei drowns in women's hair, as seen by Mana Neyestani.
Women scream out their pain and frustration as they cut their hair, image by Turkish cartoonist, and a man, Oguz Demir.
On a more sinister note, the image below, by Mana Neyestani, shows the extent of the state’s forces massed against the defiant ones: guns, and the hangman’s noose. The cartoon may refer to Iran’s clerical regime’s execution of Mohsen Shekari, on 8th May, 2022, the first known execution connected to the nationwide demonstrations.
Protest art coming out of Iran, or by artists in its large diaspora, has a radical and rebellious zeal, often using imagery from past rebellions, or from Iran's Persian history. It also broadens its imagery by deploying outdoor sites that it dramatically subverses.
The artist is Meysam Azarzad, whose protest art uses phrases from the 11th-century epic Shahnameh (“Book of Kings”). One example here reads "This massive army is useless. Indeed, a single fighting girl is worth hundreds of thousands of them" Image from https://hyperallergic.com/768539/the-many-shades-of-iran-protest-art/
Public protest often takes anonymous but telling forms. Below, a fountain that was dyed blood-red in 1984, representing the dead of the Iran-Iraq war. Red being here a sign of mourning.
Public protest often takes anonymous but telling forms. Below, a fountain that was dyed blood-red in 1984, representing the dead of the Iran-Iraq war. Red being here a sign of mourning.
In 2022 another fountain is dyed red, anonymously, which references the Mahsa Amini protests and the violence wrought by the Iranian state against the protesters.
Iranian artists, subject to tight censorship, evade the authorities with anonymous installations. In response to an attack on demonstrators at Tehran’s Sharif University, two anonymous women artists hung red hangman’s nooses, so often used to kill protesters, from trees in Daneshjoo Park .The police swiftly removed these installations, but their pictures persisted on social media platforms and even found their way into mainstream media. People got the message.
There is much quieter, more calculated art of protest practiced by Iranian artists. One example is the work of Arghan Khosravi, who now lives and works in Connecticut, USA. Khosravi uses visual art as a vehicle for cultural transformation. She investigates the aesthetics of ancient Persian miniature paintings, which were originally used to illustrate folkloric texts, turning them into wall sculpture, constructed from a complex scaffolding of cut and painted wooden panels. Below is an example of a wall sculpture. The woman's mouth is stitched up. A very strong work of art reflecting women's subjugation.
Protest art of course includes more than visual art. I will therefore finish with a song, Shervin Hajipour is an Iranian singer, known for his song "Baraye", meaning For, or ‘Because of’ which has been described as "the anthem" of the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests. He was arrested on 29 September 2022, two days after the song was initially published.” It was posted on Instagram for limited followers, but was shared more than 40 million times on social media platforms in just two days. Using phrases taken from #Baraye protest tweets, Hajipour utters the grievances and hopes of Iranians, with a final emphasis on “For Women, Life, Freedom”.
A final note. From the Essay, by Sanam Vakil, FT Weekend 23 March/24 March 2024. On the violent reaction by Khomenei's régime to the Women Life Freedom protests "Thousands were arrested, detained and tortured, many were maimed and attacked, more than 550 people were killed, young schoolgirls were hospitalised from exposure to toxic gas attacks, at least eight people have been executed and many more subjected to long prison terms. A UK fact-finding mission recently concluded that the crimes uncovered indeed amounted to "crimes against humanity.""