Hadis Najafi, a new figure in the revolt for women’s rights

by time news

The mobilization for freedom and against the prohibitions imposed on women, which has shaken Iran for more than ten days, has given rise to a new hashtag of struggle: #HadisNajafi. A rallying cry, that of the first and last name of a 20-year-old girl, killed by several bullets during a demonstration organized Thursday, September 22 in Karaj, east of Tehran.

Very quickly, many media identified her as the woman who, before facing the police, was filmed tying her hair free of any veil – a ban in public space severely sanctioned by the Islamic Republic . Monday, September 26, the Farsi antenna of the BBC relayed a message from this demonstrator, denying being Hadis Najafi, but claiming to have recorded the sequence to encourage his compatriots to “have the courage to take to the streets”.

“Death to the dictator!” »

Hadis Najafi is one of dozens of victims injured or killed in the multiple mobilizations organized throughout Iran since September 16, the date of the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old young woman who died three days after her arrest in Tehran. by the morality police for “inappropriate wearing of clothing”. Since then, thousands of women have braved the police, presenting themselves without veils and chanting anti-government slogans – “Death to the dictator!” », “Woman, life, freedom”.

Footage released on Saturday shows protesters destroying a portrait of Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, in front of the Noshirvani University of Technology in Babol, in the province of Mazandaran (north). This protest movement turns out to be the most massive since November 2019 and the slingshot then provoked by the rise in gasoline prices, in the midst of the economic crisis. A severely repressed uprising which had killed 230 people according to an official report, more than 300 according to Amnesty International.

At least 57 protesters killed

In the past ten days, the NGO Iran Human Rights Watch (IHR) has recorded at least 57 demonstrators killed, when the official report shows 41 deaths, including police and protesters. A count that is all the more complex to establish as the regime has further restricted access to the Internet and social networks, precious channels for relaying images of mobilization and evidence of shootings at the population.

The WhatsApp and Instagram applications have been blocked, joining Facebook and Twitter among the prohibited services. A measure qualified on Sunday as “flagrant violation of freedom of expression” by the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell, who denounced the use “widespread and disproportionate force” against the protesters.

The regime’s latest outings only portend more repression. Iran’s judiciary chief threatened on Sunday not to show“no leniency” towards the demonstrators. President Ebrahim Raïsi had previously called on the police to act “firmly against those who undermine the security and peace of the country and the people”. Since the start of the demonstrations, more than 700 people have been arrested in a northern province, the only one having communicated on the arrests.

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