They picked the location: a main square with the backdrop of Tehran’s famous Azadi (“Freedom”) Tower, a sensitive location, to say the least. The Azadi Tower opened in the early 1970s under the rule of the secular, modernizing Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and was meant to celebrate 2,500 years of the Persian Empire. Back then, it was called the Shahyad (“In Memory of the Shah”) Tower and was designed by a Bahá’í architect named Hossein Amanat, whose faith isn’t even recognized in Iran today, and who now lives in exile (he also designed the Bahá’í Arc buildings in Haifa).
With the location in place, he took her hand and they began to dance together. At one point, Amir Mohammad Ahmadi, 22, lifted his bare-haired fiancée, Astiyazh Haghighi, 21, in the air as they swayed gracefully. Her hair flowed freely. He dipped her. They kissed.
Last fall, the couple, who are bloggers, posted the video to Instagram, where it received millions of views by Iranians at home and abroad. And then they were arrested. According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, Haghighi and Ahmadi were denied a lawyer.
Their conviction for dancing together in public is so extreme that one may have to read it twice to believe it. The couple was charged with “spreading corruption, vice, and prostitution, assembly and collusion with the intention of disrupting national security, and propaganda against the establishment.” In early February, they were each sentenced to five and a half years in prison.
Such is the current state of affairs in Iran. And these days, I’m asked one particular question, whether by friends, readers or on social media, that truly pains me: “Are the protests in Iran dying out?”
It may seem like an innocent question, but to Iranians in the diaspora, it’s loaded with pain and anxiety. You see, we may not be able to fight for freedom on the streets in Iran, but we, too, have a lot riding on this revolution. In fact, it’s painfully nuanced: We desperately want the revolution to succeed, but we don’t want more innocent Iranians killed, injured or imprisoned. I know that sounds naive, but it’s true.
Since protests erupted in Iran after the September 2022 murder of Mahsa Amini, nearly 20,000 people have been arrested and at least 522 have died (70 of them minors), according to the NGO Human Rights Activists in Iran, which has been monitoring the protests along with several other groups.
I’ll spare readers the horrifying crimes that have been perpetrated against those who have been arrested (including rape against men) and even their families, but suffice it to say, stories of such brutality and the sheer force of the police have undoubtedly had an impact on protestors.
The Iranian revolutionary train has left the station. But Americans deserve to know why President Biden just derailed its historic departure.
When asked if the protests are losing momentum, Iranian dissident and Nobel Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, who is based in London, compared the revolution to “a train that left the station” during a February 10 panel of key opposition leaders sponsored by Georgetown’s Institute for Women, Peace and Security. The event, which was held in person and included televised remarks from speakers abroad, was broadcast live around the world, including in Iran. Ebadi was the first female president of a Tehran city court (and one of the first female judges in Iran), but after the 1979 revolution, she was dismissed. In 2000, Ebadi was arrested for advocating on behalf of oppressed Iranians.
“The next wave will come, and it will be heavier,” added Canada-based Hamed Esmaeilion, president and spokesman of The Association of Victims’ Families of Flight PS752 (Esmaeilion lost his wife and 9-year-old daughter when the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps shot down a Ukrainian airliner in 2020 using two surface-to-air missiles, killing all 176 onboard). To see Esmaeilion’s face is to see the countenance of a broken man who is as much fueled by love for his lost family as by seeking justice against those who took their lives.
“The revolution isn’t dead; the regime is dead in the hearts of the people.”
Exiled Iranian journalist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Masih Alinejad said, “The revolution isn’t dead; the regime is dead in the hearts of the people.” She also reminded viewers that revolutions take different forms, and protests in the streets are one of those forms. Exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi, son of the Shah, asked whether the civil rights movement in the U.S. ended when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Claiming that the revolution in Iran has died down is “offensive,” said Pahlavi. Each of the exiled leaders who spoke live or via video stressed that Iranians must be united for an opposition movement to have a chance of succeeding.
Last week, Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent Iranian human rights lawyer, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that “the protests have somewhat died down, but that doesn’t mean that the people are no longer angry … they constantly want and still want a regime change. They want a referendum.”
Sotoudeh wasn’t speaking in-person with Amanpour in the West, but live via video from her home in Tehran, where she is currently on medical furlough from jail. Did I mention that Sotoudeh, one of the most brilliant legal advocates for women and children’s rights in Iran, has been sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes?
And then, there’s Dr. Farhad Meysami, a 53-year-old physician who was finally released last week after being in jail since 2018 for supporting Iranian women who’ve fought against the mandatory hijab (Islamic head covering). Meysami began a hunger strike on October 7 and, according to a tweet by his lawyer, has lost 115 pounds. Images of his emaciated face and body, with protruding ribs, recently went viral, to the horror of millions. From attorneys to physicians, singers, athletes and even award-winning directors, some days, it seems like the regime is arresting virtually everyone. I urge readers to Google the now famous photo of Meysami on his hunger strike. If his suffering doesn’t make you grateful for your own life and freedoms, I don’t know what will.
Amid this backdrop of horrifying human rights abuses in Iran came news last week that the Biden administration is partially waiving sanctions on the regime to allow Russia (specifically, Rosatom, Russia’s State Nuclear Energy Corporation) to work with the mullahs without facing U.S. sanctions. It’s a win-win: Iran will be allowed to continue development of its nuclear program while enriching a Russian state-controlled organization.
Iranians know that waiving sanctions, even partially, means only one thing: The regime will receive more money to crush this revolution even more harshly. A collective cry of outrage (plus a few expletive-filled outbursts) emanated from many Iranian Americans, myself included, when the Biden administration announced this roll-back of sanctions last Friday, just in time for Shabbat.
Last Saturday marked the 44th anniversary of the Islamic revolution in Iran, and while state-organized rallies around the country touted the regime’s virtues, in the U.S., anti-regime rallies, including one in downtown Los Angeles, brought thousands of exiled Iranians together. In Iran, President Ebrahim Raisi’s televised speech was interrupted by an anti-government hacker group by the name of Edalate Ali (Justice of Ali). In the background, a voice shouted, “Death to the Islamic Republic.”
Incidentally, that televised speech was held at Tehran’s Azadi Square, home to the Azadi cultural complex mentioned at the beginning of this column. One space, two starkly different meanings.
For one couple, it meant a 10-year prison sentence. For a regime head famously known as “The Butcher of Tehran,” it meant celebrating (if you can call it that) half a lifetime of brutality (44 years). And in Washington, D.C., the ultimate symbol of freedom worldwide, the most powerful man in the world decided to loosen sanctions and strengthen both Iran and Russia. In doing so, he just signed a death sentence against hundreds more who seek freedom in Iran.
The Iranian revolutionary train has left the station. But Americans deserve to know why President Biden just derailed its historic departure.
Tabby Refael is an award-winning, L.A.-based writer, speaker and civic action activist. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @TabbyRefael.
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