The Kurdish Struggle Is at the Heart of the Protests in Iran
Protests in Iran have erupted following the death of a young Kurdish woman for “inappropriate dress” — laying bare not only the theocratic brutality of Iran’s government but the Iranian state’s historic repression of the Kurdish people.
People waving Iranian and Kurdish flags fill Trafalgar Square in solidarity with those protesting across Iran on October 1, 2022, in London, United Kingdom. (Mark Kerrison / In Pictures via Getty Images)
On September 13, a twenty-two-year-old visitor to Tehran named Jîna (Mahsa) Amini found herself in trouble with Iran’s “morality police.” Her supposed crime was inappropriate dress, for which she was detained.
Such encounters are not uncommon in Iran, ruled by a reactionary government that hijacked the 1979 mass uprising against the county’s US-backed monarch, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. However, while most morality police detentions are nonlethal, for Amini it proved otherwise. She fell into a coma in custody and died three days later. Authorities claim she suffered a heart attack, but evidence suggests she was severely beaten.
Amini’s death has proved to be a lightning rod, sparking a wave of popular protests across Iran.
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