Women are burning headscarves in the streets of Iran as they call for regime change. Protests began after Mahsa Amini’s funeral on September 17 and have swept the nation to as many as 80 cities and internationally.
Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, was detained by Morality Police for improperly wearing her hijab (Islamic headscarf). According to a report by the United Nations, Amini was severely beaten during her arrest and was in a coma for several days before her death.
“The women of Iran are at the forefront [of protests] … proving that if any tradition needs defending 24 hours a day by armed men who have to beat people to embrace it, then it deserves to perish,” says Roya Hakakian, an Iranian American journalist.
Hakakian writes: “No one can predict how a revolution starts,” noting that “thousands have taken to the streets in a show of rage and solidarity that is rare even for a country that has known many such tumultuous moments.
More than some past uprisings against the regime, this one has been remarkably broad-based and inclusive,” with men standing beside women, rich standing beside poor, and the youth standing alongside their parents and grandparents.
“What you see is people who are fed up with a regime. Not only do they take away people’s civil and political rights, but they also interfere in people’s most private aspects of life,” says the Director of Iran Human Rights, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, in an interview with TIME.