Thousands of people in Iran have been protesting against the government since mid-September 2022. The trigger was the death of Jina Mahsa Amina. The Iranian Kurd died in police custody on September 16, 2022 after being arrested by the so-called vice squad. She is said to have worn her headscarf incorrectly and thus violated the Islamic dress code in force in Iran. Since then, people at home and abroad have repeatedly protested against the government and the Islamic system.

Gilda Sahebi is a German-Iranian journalist, author and doctor. In the interview she talks about the long struggle for women’s rights in Iran.

Ms. Sahebi, there have been repeated protests against the government for 44 years. What’s different this time?

A lot. For the first time, the protests are aimed specifically at the oppression of women and minorities in the country. For the first time there are expressions of solidarity in both directions from large parts of the population, i.e. from the minority areas to the rest of the country and vice versa.

80 percent of the people reject the Islamic Republic. This is the result of a current survey of people in Iran and Iranians living abroad.

Exactly, across all classes, regardless of gender, whether rural or urban, whether they have university degrees or not, whether young or old. All social and age groups are united in the protest. This is also new.

Jin, Jiyan, Azadî – woman, life, freedom – has been the rallying cry of the protests since September 2022. Women are explicitly the top priority. Is this new?

Yes. This was not always the case in the opposition movement in Iran. The role of women’s oppression was often seen only as a by-product of the Islamic Republic. It is one of the main pillars on which this whole system stands. And the system can only break if this pillar is broken. I think a lot of people understood that.

Why is there so much togetherness now? Is that perhaps also due to social media, which strengthen this feeling?

The demonstrations that took place in Iran in 2009 were also referred to as “Twitter protests”. This is not new, but it is certainly crucial: the many images of arrested and killed protesters have spread around the world through social media. Their names were used as hashtags. Attention: That is also a force for this revolution and for the protest movement.

In recent years there has generally been an ever-increasing awareness of inequality among the population. The #metoo movement has also played a major role in Iran. There were many debates about women’s rights, about sexual harassment, about sexualized violence. Awareness of this has increased – also of how brutal this oppression of women is in Iran. The regime’s brutality was just as great in the 1980s as it is now, but more and more people are finding out about it and no longer want to tolerate it.

Despite this, there are still people who support the regime. Why?

In the past 44 years, the regime in Iran has built a state structure out of dependencies. This is very, very important for the survival of the regime. It guarantees its followers that they are sure, that they are rich, that they are benefiting. In short: that they have a good life.

So far, many of these supporters have been able to convince themselves that they don’t get their hands dirty. But now the evidence of the crimes is going around the world: in the form of photos, reports and articles about those imprisoned, tortured and killed. These members of the regime could start to fear that they might one day be held accountable for their actions. The regime fears this internal migration. The system falls when its own people no longer follow it.

So are protest waves in Iran always a war of information?

Yes, it really is an information war. You have to be very careful about which sources you trust. For example, the regime tries to destroy evidence of violent acts against protesters or their deaths. It wants to intimidate affected families so that they don’t release any pictures or information and keep quiet. Protesting athletes and musicians have also been intimidated by the regime and have had to post pro-state statements on social media that obviously do not come from them.

In some cases, however, journalists abroad also pick up reports from Iranian news agencies without classifying them. However, state news agencies from Iran always have an agenda. Always. If you read “Ayatollah Ali Khamenei [Anm. d. Red.: sogenannter „Oberster Führer“ im Iran] pardons thousands of prisoners”, then you have to know: The agenda behind it is that you want to calm the people in your own country. At the same time, they want to send a signal to other countries: “Now relax, everything will calm down again, we’re not that bad”.

That’s the agenda – you have to be aware of that before you take on such reports one-to-one. And you have to check them: Is that really true, that thousands of prisoners will be pardoned? Reports by the Iranian state media must be assumed to be a lie until proven otherwise.

The wave of protests is bigger this time than ever before. But more and more people abroad are drawing more attention to the situation in Iran than before. Why has there been so little coverage of this in Western media before?

For the West, Iran has long been considered a “stable” state: there is no civil war, there is no Islamic State, there are secure borders, there is no insecurity like in Syria, there is no failed state like in Afghanistan. The only uncertainty that existed, in the eyes of Western governments, was Iran’s nuclear ambitions. And that’s why the media focused primarily on security issues such as the nuclear deal. It must be said that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are extremely worrying. There is no scenario more dangerous than nuclear bombs falling into the hands of this regime.

But on a political and media level, no one looked deeper. And so you missed the chance to understand the Islamic Republic.

You have written a book about the current wave of protests in Iran and the struggle for equality for 44 years. “Our Sword Is Love” is published on International Women’s Day – for many a feminist day of struggle. What does the day mean to protesters in Iran?

This date has always played an important role for the women’s movement in Iran: March 8, 1979 saw the first women’s protest against the Islamic Republic after the compulsory veil had been introduced. There were tens of thousands of women without headscarves on the streets of Tehran, marking the beginning of this women’s protest against the Islamic Republic.

In recent years, this day has also become more aware of the broader society. The women’s movement has always existed in Iran and didn’t just emerge – resistance was there all the time. The special thing is that it is now wider and more men are also committed to it.

The Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, for example, always makes sure that his lyrics are not anti-feminist. That’s what a friend of Toomaj’s told me for my book. How many rappers in Germany do that? This struggle in Iran is a feminist one through and through, because people are fighting for liberation, equality and equal rights for all genders.

In the book, you also describe the enormous brutality with which the Iranian government has been targeting members of the opposition for decades. Revolutionary Guards members rape protesters or shoot them in the eye at demonstrations. If protesters are arrested, they face torture – in a number of cases the death penalty has been imposed. More than 500 protesters have been killed since September 2022. Many minors were also sentenced to death. How is such an approach compatible with Islam, which the government uses to justify dress codes for women, among other things?

I can’t say that because I’m not an Islamic scholar. I can only describe my observations: those in power abuse Islam to justify their actions. Religion is something of a universal explanation for their crimes. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a state of Islamist extremism. Any extremist ideology is misanthropic, regardless of its origin. This is how the clerics explain the oppression of women or claim that resistance to the system is resistance to God.

The regime is training the so-called Revolutionary Guards to protect the 1979 revolution – that is, the revolutionary leader, the current regime. Half of the Revolutionary Guards’ training consists of ideology. These young men should become as extremist as possible, lose any kind of empathy and learn to hate. This then enables them to see and treat people as objects.

According to the above poll, 67 percent of Iranians believe the protests will be successful. Do all Iranians want the same for the future?

There are different ideas – both in Iran and abroad. This is a challenge that the people of Iran will hopefully have to face at some point. There is a common hope for a new state. The majority want some kind of democratic system. Whether they want a presidential or a parliamentary system or a constitutional monarchy is different. Young people in particular don’t want an authoritarian system again and nothing to be dictated to them.

How optimistic are you that there will be a revolution?

I believe it will be impossible for the regime to turn back time. Most people don’t do it anymore. Their goal is to overthrow the regime. I have no idea how long that will take. It can go months or it can take years. Eventually this regime will fall.