The below is a story about the taste of freedom, and about the strength of standing against intolerable darkness.
It’s difficult to forget what happened in Iran in 2022. 22 year old Mahsa Amini was visiting Tehran with her family when she was stopped by Iran’s morality police. She was arrested for not wearing her headscarf “properly” under Iran’s compulsory hijab laws. According to eyewitnesses and human rights groups, she was pushed into a police van and beaten. Although she was taken to a hospital, she died three days after her arrest.
Amini’s death ignited nationwide protests across Iran centered on demands for women’s rights, personal freedoms, and broader political change. Demonstrations under the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom” (“Jin, Jiyan, Azadî”) spread from her. I also chanted #SayHerName, when I saw her name trending. It was heartbreaking. I was afraid for the countless brave women who setting their hijabs on fire in an unmistakable act of resistance.
Today, I saw a powerful new Iranian female protest rap track on X. I read the captions to understand the lyrics and its intense and hard-hitting.
What might sound to listeners in a free world like a strong women’s rap anthem carries far deeper context. These brave women are risking their life to create this art as the ultimate act of defiance.
In 2022, the protest song “Baraye” by Shervin Hajipour which was built around the “Woman, Life, Freedom” slogan went viral during the Mahsa Amini uprising, only to result in his detention and censorship. His IG is still kind of active, and that’s how I know he is alive. Another Iranian artist Bahadur Hadizadeh had created a stunning animation of Tehran’s Azadi Tower of Life with flowing hair without a hijab.
This latest track echoes that same spirit of rebellion, directly linking to the ongoing fight for women’s rights, freedom, and dignity in Iran.
Today’s protests have been sparked by economic pain and have revived the fight against systemic repression, including enforced veiling and patriarchal controls on women’s voices.
Iran rises. Once again. Woman, Life, Freedom. ✊ (But, I’m terrified for these children.)
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“Under the Iranian code, the worth of a woman’s life equals half of a man’s, a point that often leads to grotesque legal judgments that effectively punish the victims. In this instance, the judge ruled that the ‘blood money’ for the two men was worth more than the life of the murdered nine-year-old girl, and he demanded that her family come up with thousands of dollars to finance their executions.”
~ Shirin Ebadi, Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope
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