The Student Government Association (SGA) hosted a discussion panel on Monday to address the recent protest movement in Iran. The panelists included professor of political economy Dr. Behzad Yaghmaian, assistant professor of IT management Dr. Fariba Nosrati and special guest Atieh Babakhani, a Ph.D. candidate from the Criminal Justice and Sociology Department at the University of Delaware who joined the discussion virtually.
The Iranian panelists broke down the protest movement in a cultural and historical context. The movement, known as “Women, Life, Freedom,” is a protest about women’s rights, specifically about the compulsory hijab women must wear in public in Iran. All three panelists stressed how important the compulsory element is to the protest movement since it is viewed as a way for the Iranian government to control women’s rights and their bodily autonomy.
Yaghmaian first briefly discussed how the protest movement started. On Sep. 16, 2022, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died a few days after being beaten and taken into custody by what the Iranian people refer to as the “morality police.” She was arrested because part of her hair was showing, even though she was dressed in the baggy black robe and hijab all women in Iran are forced to wear in public.
“I want all of us as academics, as professionals, as scholars, to think about whatever is happening around the world, and this is one of those situations, how we can use it in our research and scholarship. How can we use our expertise that we have to help people involved in this situation?”
– Dr. Fariba Nosrati
Yaghmaian explained that this protest movement is the result of saturation, of 44 years of the Iranian government creating a reign of terror that started with controlling women’s rights. He likened it to George Floyd’s murder in the sense that both his and Amini’s deaths were a point where people felt they needed to respond and huge protest movements sprung from them.
Nosrati looked at the protest movement from the perspective of a global citizen, saying we are all connected and are affected when something goes wrong in the world, like with COVID or the war in Ukraine. Specifically, she spoke about global citizenship from the perspective of members of the Ramapo community, as there are people on campus who are affected by the protest movement.
“I want all of us as academics, as professionals, as scholars, to think about whatever is happening around the world, and this is one of those situations, how we can use it in our research and scholarship. How can we use our expertise that we have to help people involved in this situation?” she asked.
She gave a personal example of her background in data and data analytics using social media, analyzing what people want, what is information and what is disinformation. Social media plays an important role in the protest movement because it is the only tool the Iranian people have since they do not have free speech or press. She described it as a double-edged sword, as the Iranian government can use the same technology to spread disinformation and track people through data on delivery apps, such as DoorDash.
Babakhani said the “movement was not a surprise” and gave some more context about social movements in Iran, explaining that women have been treated as second-class citizens since the end of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. On Mar. 7, 1979, Iran’s first supreme leader Ruhollah Khomeini said that women will have to wear a hijab in the workplace. The next day, thousands of women protested as a statement. In 1983, the hijab became compulsory in all public places.
She then discussed modern protests that took place before “Women, Life, Freedom,” like the “My Stealthy Freedom” campaign and “The Girls of Revolution Street.”
Yaghmaian also described the women’s rights movement in Iran as coming in three waves since 1979 — the first wave of grandparents, the second wave of millennials and the current wave of Gen Z. He said the current wave of protests is founded on the history of both of the previous movements. The first wave did not have any support from men and the second wave, which Yaghmaian was in Iran at the time to witness, drew in support from both men and women.
“The loudest voices are the women,” Nosrati said. She emphasized that although both men and women are supporting these protests, it is ultimately women who are affected by the strict laws limiting both their rights as women and their bodily autonomy.
mwikfors@ramapo.edu
Featured photo by Matthew Wikfors
