Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November/December 2023, pp. 58-59
Waging Peace
The Iranian diaspora in Washington, DC commemorated the first anniversary of the murder of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in mid-September with two protests.
While exiting a Tehran metro station, Amini was arrested by Iran’s infamous “morality police” for wearing her hijab improperly. Her arrest and death while in police custody became the fuel for the massive nationwide “Women, Life, Freedom” movement.
On Sept. 14, a noontime demonstration was held outside the office of the Interests Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran (located inside a downtown office building). While office workers entered and exited the building, one protester read the names of those killed by the Iranian government for protesting, while others picketed the building’s entrance carryings signs and posters with the victims’ portraits, while chanting “Women, Life, Freedom.”
At Lafayette Square (near the White House) on Sept. 16, several hundred Iranian Americans and their supporters gathered to express solidarity and contempt for the Iranian government. They also called for the establishment of a democratic government and denounced any efforts by the U.S. government to engage Tehran.
At an event at the Atlantic Council on Sept. 15, Roya Boroumand, co-founder of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center For Human Rights In Iran, provided an overview of the repression Iranians have faced over the past year. She has documented 495 protest-related deaths and more than 20,000 arrests stemming from protests.
Iranian journalist Khosro Kalbasi Isfahani described the protests as a turning point in Iranian history. “The legacy of four decades of the Islamic Republic has been pain,” he said. “The people in Iran have found a new identity, a new core that has brought them together. What happened with [Mahsa Amini’s] death, that’s [a] historic moment. It gave birth to a new nation.”
—Phil Pasquini
