The world watches in dismay and sadness as Iran clamps down on protesters who are outraged at the continual suppression of rights in the country.  

On December 16,  a 22 year old Kurdish girl named  Mahsa (Jinna) Amini  died while she was in a coma after being hit on the head multiple times by the (morality police) in Tehran.  

Protesters and an Jinna Amini photo.

She was from a small city named Saqez in Kurdistan province and went with her brother to Tehran, which is the capital of Iran, to visit for a couple of days. After being arrested for not wearing her hijab properly, she was transported to a police station, where it is said she was punched in the head so hard that her ears started bleeding due to internal damage. Her brother witnessed everything, crying “Please don’t take her, we’re strangers in this city.” This is what Ashkan, Jinna’s brother pleaded to the officers before they put her inside the police van according to IranInternational. 

Shortly after her arrest, Jinna died. The news of her death spread all over Iran and across the internet. 

Being arrested or beaten up by the police for not wearing the hijab properly isn’t anything new for Iranians; it has been happening for the past 43 years. But Jinna’s story is so tragic that people started to show anger toward the harsh interpretation of the Islamic rules and the morality police, especially the people of (Saqez), where Jinna came from, and the city where the protests against the regime started.  

Iran has seen several protests against the regime in the last 43 years of the Islamic Republic. But what is so significant about this time is that the outrage is not just happening in all 31 provinces in Iran, but it is happening in around 80 other cities around the globe, such as Vancouver, BC.  According to globalnews ,it is said that tens of thousands attended the Vancouver rally, including some of the Riverside students. 

People are finding more creative ways to fight for their basic rights besides face to face physical combat, such as schoolgirls removing their head scarfs, workers are quitting their jobs and writing anti-regime slogans on the walls across the city. An example for this type of civil disobedience is (Elnaz Rekabi) a female rock climber who didn’t wear her hijab on her match in Korea and was welcomed by hundreds of people at the airport because of her bravery.  

Since the protests started, 233 protesters have been killed – including 32 children – by the Islamic republic oppression forces, according to PBS news, and this number is rising every day. At the same time the Islamic Republic completely denies these numbers and states that none of their forces are equipped with any firearm and blames all the mass killings on Israel and the United State! Complete denial seems to always be the easiest option for the I.R. to cover up their crimes. 

History has shown us that every dictator has a certain fate. No one was able to run a nation with oppression, tyranny or mass executions for a long time, without facing justice. The whole nation is fighting for a free Iran and an end to this dictatorship. Their voice needs to be heard.