Iran’s George Floyd moment

The arrest of a woman for not wearing proper dress and her death in custody have ignited public debate on civic equality and freedoms.

|
Reuters
A newspaper with a cover picture of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by Iranian morality police is seen in Tehran, Sept. 18.

Iran has seen many mass protests against its ruling clerics but none quite like those in recent days. Since Friday, when a young woman died after being arrested for not wearing proper head covering, Iranians have taken to the streets, Twitter, and Instagram by the millions. Some call it Iran’s George Floyd moment.

Even outside Iran, critics from J.K. Rowling to the United Nations have decried the injustice of the mysterious death as well as Iran’s ever-harsher rules on clothing – some of which apply to men, such as not wearing shorts.

The scope of the protests appears to matter less to the regime than a particular point being made – that rules and laws can only be enacted and imposed by a democracy that has civic equality. In Iran’s Islamic Republic, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, presumes sole authority to rule.

The spirit of equality can be seen in the many female protesters who voluntarily choose to wear the mandatory hijab out of their own sense of modesty. One noted critic, Grand Ayatollah Asadollah Bayat-Zanjani, said the actions of the so-called morality police in abducting those who violate the official dress code are “against the law, against religion, and against logic.” The Quran “clearly prevents the faithful from using force to impose the values ​​they consider religious and moral,” he added.

Another critic, Ayatollah Mohaqeq Damad, said the morality police, known as “guiding vigilantes” (Gashteh Ershad), were set up to check the behavior of rulers, “not to crack down on the liberties of the citizens.”

Such high-level assertions of civic freedoms have put the regime on a back foot. The hard-line conservative president, Ebrahim Raisi, was forced to call the family of the victim, Mahsa Amini, and to order an official probe “to closely investigate the issue so that no right is violated.”

Some critics say the regime uses the dress code mainly as a way to control society. Others, both inside Iran and elsewhere, say impositions on women in Muslim societies must be challenged as a religious violation.

“The teachings of Islam, in all their diversity, encourage a woman’s spiritual aspirations absent an intercessor between her and God and define her identity as first and foremost a servant of The Divine, whose rights constitute a sacred covenant,” wrote Dalia Mogahed, an American of Egyptian origin who is director of research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding in Washington, in Al Jazeera last year.

The regime knows it has a problem. A recent official report said some 60% of women either do not support or regularly wear full “Islamic hijab.” That spirit of equality will be difficult to suppress.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Iran’s George Floyd moment
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2022/0920/Iran-s-George-Floyd-moment
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe