Who was Mahsa Amini, the woman whose death sparked recent protests in Iran?
The protests following the death of a 22-year-old Iranian woman in police custody are multifaceted. Her gender and Kurdish origins have made her a special symbol for women and Kurds alike.
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Flyers with a picture of the young Iranian woman Mahsa Amini are distributed at a protest in Copenhagen.
When they learned of Mahsa Amini’s fate, some Iranians were reminded of the young street vendor who sparked the largest wave of protests in Tunisia more than a decade ago. The comparison is a bit misleading, however, because Mohammed Bouazizi ended his own life, while Amini, according to the information available, was beaten to death by police officers.
But Bouazizi and Amini do have some things in common: Both were the victims of an arbitrary regime – and neither was born a hero. Amini had never been politically active as a teenager, and she was not an activist in any other way. She was simply a young woman who wanted to enjoy her life.
A young Kurdish woman
Some of the pictures that have surfaced online show Amini wearing bold red lipstick. In others, she appears at the side of a friend and looks almost dreamy. In one of the photos, she is dancing in a colorful Kurdish dress, another one features her sitting on her parents’ sofa in jeans and a black sweater. Whenever possible, the pretty young woman’s long black hair is uncovered. She evidently did not approve of the headscarf requirement in Iran.
Amini had recently celebrated her 22nd birthday, and graduated from high school not too long ago. She was born in 2000 in Saqez, in western Iran, into a Kurdish family. Her father was a businessman and her mother a housewife; the family also has a son. The parents gave their only daughter the Kurdish name Zhina (also spelled Jina), which means «life-giving.»
Her passport, however, contains the Persian name Mahsa – meaning beautiful and perfect «like the moon.» The Kurdish language and culture are not banned in Iran. The constitution of the Islamic Republic even states that «regional and tribal languages» may be used in the media and taught in schools. For official documents, however, only Persian is permitted. And in practice, teachers who teach Kurdish are persecuted. Two years ago, a court sentenced a teacher to 10 years in prison for doing so.
The 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was not politically active. Photos of her, however, suggest that she did not approve of the headscarf requirement.
Unsuccessful criminalization
More than half of Iranians are not Persian, and Kurds make up between 7% and 10% of the total population. Throughout their history, they have risen up against the central power in Tehran several times. In 1946, Kurds proclaimed the short-lived «Republic of Mahabad» in the city of Mahabad. However, the Shiite Islamists are also suspicious of the Kurds, because the majority of them are Sunnis.
To this day, several rebel groups are fighting for autonomy or even Kurdish independence. One of Amini's cousins is a member of the leftist group Komala, which carries out occasional pinprick operations against the regime in Tehran from northern Iraq. Following the young woman's death, the regime also tried to use this fact to denigrate her.
Amini was visiting her brother in Tehran and was traveling with family members in the capital when she was arrested by the morality police, for allegedly not dressing demurely enough. Initially, officials reported that the young woman had fainted suddenly at the police station and died as a result of kidney disease. When this did not convince the public, the authorities referred to her cousin in an attempt to connect the innocent Amini to Kurdish rebels. This tactic too proved unsuccessful.
A symbol of discontent
In places where other minorities are fighting for more rights, demonstrators have explicitly backed the Kurds. In Tehran and elsewhere, protesters have sometimes also adopted the slogan of Kurdish women who fought against the Islamic State in Syria, chanting «Woman, life, freedom» («Jin, jian, azadit»).
For all of this, as the pretty, apolitical Amini struggled in vain for her life in a Tehran hospital, badly injured and almost angelic-looking, she became a symbol for women who want to tear off their chador, and for Kurds who demand minority rights. This is another reason why those in power in Tehran are so afraid of the protests spreading.
As in the past, security forces are using brute force against protesters. More than 50 people have already died, dozens have been injured and hundreds arrested. The government’s harsh intervention has deterred many, and the size of the protests has dwindled. Nevertheless, the death of the young Kurdish woman will leave lasting traces in the country. It is another incident that undermines the power of the regime.
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