On September 16th, a 22-year-old woman named Mahsa Amini was stopped by the Morality Police in Iran. The Morality Police claimed (afterwards) that Amini’s hijab was too loose. The Morality Police beat Amini until she lost consciousness. She was taken to a hospital where she died from internal injuries two days later. The beating and murder of Mahsa Amini has set off one of the largest protests in Iran in decades. Young women AND men are protesting the oppressive regime, the lawless brutality of the Morality Police and the hijab mandate. Alongside the protests, there’s been a violent crackdown which has left dozens of protestors dead in the streets.
As you can see in the above Instagram, Angelina Jolie is watching the protests unfold too. She posted photos and wrote this:
Respect to the brave, defiant, fearless women of Iran.
All those who have survived and resisted for decades, those taking to the streets today, and Masha Amini and all young Iranians like her.
Women don’t need their morals policed, their minds re-educated, or their bodies controlled. They need freedom to live and breathe without violence or threats.
To the women of Iran, we see you.
#WomanLifeFreedom
#MahsaAmini
Iran – like many oppressive regimes – has tried to not only violently crack down on the protests, but crack down on the images and videos coming out of the protests. Still, there are so many videos and photos getting out into the wider world. We can the women removing their hijabs in the streets and cutting their hair. We can see Iranian men standing up for their sisters. It feels momentous. It feels like… something really has to change.
Young Iranians “don’t want this system any more,” says Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis. “They want democracy.”
“They want a new government… This generation is very, very different from us,” she tells me, especially young men's solidarity with women’s rights inside Iran. pic.twitter.com/Q5EXpwqJ8K
— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) September 26, 2022
The chant now in Iran: “We will fight, we will die, we will take Iran back” pic.twitter.com/3ZAwzRnU6B
— Frida Ghitis (@FridaGhitis) September 28, 2022
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Instagram.
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- Angelina Jolie attends the photocall of the movie “Eternals”, October 25, 2021 in Rome, Italy. 25 Oct 2021,Image: 639717567, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Maria Laura Antonelli / AGF Foto / Avalon
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- Los Angeles, CA – Movie star Angelina Jolie wraps up her book signing at the Skylight bookstore in Los Angeles. Angelina meet with hundreds of fans during the event. Pictured: Angelina Jolie BACKGRID USA 13 OCTOBER 2021 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- London, UNITED KINGDOM – Celebrities attend the UK Gala Screening of “The Eternals” at the BFI IMAX Waterloo in London, England. Pictured: Angelina Jolie BACKGRID USA 27 OCTOBER 2021 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
Brad is putting out statements about a woman’s hotness and Angelina is speaking out for injustice. There is no comparison.
Literally no comparison. Brad is trash.
Brad has limited thinking. His wheel house is Hollywood. His curiosity does not extend outside the arts.
I hope more people and Celebrities share Masha Amini story and bring even more attention to what the Iranian government is trying bury.
yes to all this. I want her story shared and the people who are risking their lives and dying in these historic protests.
Thank you so much for covering this!
I always get the feeling that Iranian people are some of the most highly educated people in the world.
You can’t keep people down like this with a backwards regime forever.
I’ve traveled extensively in the Arab/Farsi speaking world, including to Iran, and it is a surprisingly secular country. Anyone can walk into a mosque, regardless of their faith and the prayer call has been condensed to twice a day with very few actually responding.
Theocracy is merely a means to autocracy in Iran and morality police are merely a tool of oppression. When I was there in 2016, there was a hijab protest where men also wore hijabs and the news covered it as a human interest story, not a as scandal.
She was in Pakistan last week. She is doing what she always does and ignoring all the noise that man makes.
Yes, I was so glad to see her highlight the continued devastation of the Pakistan floods! She seems to have a close connection with that country. Bless her and her work.
Just signed up for Angie’s IG account. I love that she is a “mom, filmmaker, Special Envoy for UN @refugees”.
I’d like to think that change will happen in Iran, but we were fooled by the Arab Spring years ago.
These protestors are so brave…
There is a photo circulating of two women in a cafe having lunch without their hijabs on. They were surrounded by other patrons who were eating and nothing seemed to happen to them. I was blown away by the visual and was left amazed by these brave women, because I know I don’t have the strength to do it.
I stand with the Iranian women who call for freedom!
I haven’t seen that one, yet. However I saw a short clip of some filming that highly armed forces shoot into windows of civilians homes. They literally do not care whether or not there are children next to the windows. In the face of such brutality the women in the café are brave beyond words.
Sadly one of the women in the picture was arrested today, but we’ll continue our fight for freedom!
Thank you for covering this & I appreciate Angie highlighting it. What’s happening in Iran feels momentous, but it’s so horrible that Mahsa was murdered & protesters are being killed. Lest we forget, people going about their business are detained & killed in the US for no reason. And people who protest those injustices are also detained & killed. The fight for justice is constant.
On the topic of oppressed woman, as the US pulled out of Afghanistan and we saw Afghan men swarming the airport, my comment was we armed the wrong gender. We should have armed the truly oppressed population, the women.
I really appreciate the way Angelina understands the fact that supporting these protests is not the same as being Islamophobic. It’s possible for worries about not being/ coming across as Islamophobic to cloud judgment sometimes, and that can make things harder for women (and men) from other places and cultures who are trying to set healthy, life-saving boundaries.
I’m Muslim, my entire family is Muslim. I can’t speak for the entire Muslim world, but a good part of the Muslim community I grew up in (my family, our friends, families) have never thought of Angelina as an Islamophobe. She is a rare celebrity that actually takes the time to learn about and respect other cultures that are different from her own, different from her upbringing. When she first started embarking on all her humanitarian missions and speaking up for displaced peoples and human rights, using her celebrity to bring attention to these causes, she was like a breath of fresh air in a sea of xenophobia, bigotry, misogyny, and prejudice. She will always have her detractors, but I’m willing to bet for every hater she’s got a 1000 more admirers and fans.
Once again, THANK YOU for spotlighting this. Jina “Mahsa” Amini was murdered and the regime continues to kill. I was so glad to see Angelina Jolie posting about her and the situation (though I do wish someone on her team would correct the typo calling Mahsa “Masha” in the caption.) Brian Cox is another celebrity who is calling attention to the situation and highlighting the plight of Iranians; his wife is half Iranian, I believe.
The stakes are so high, they are chanting “Irani Mimirad, Zelat Nemipazirad”-“Iranians Die But Will Not Be Suppressed.”
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“Zan, Zandegi, Azadi.”
Woman, Life, Freedom.
The Iranian president was going to be interviewed by Christiane Amanpour in New York, and at the last minute he said she needed to wear a headscarf for the interview. She refused, and the interview was cancelled. I think it was an important decision, and I’m glad she didn’t give in to his demands.
I’m glad she didn’t give in as well. Saying no as a woman is not an act of disrespect, and this kind of behavior is not okay no matter where a man is from, what he’s been through, what he does or does not have in common with the women he’s trying to control, or what he believes. Never let a man gaslight you into believing that basic respect for him and empathy for his hardships mean accepting misogyny.
I can’t correctly articulate what watching this unfold has meant to me. I truly feels like their time is now, and it’s so past due. I’ve been crying tears of every emotion, I simply can’t imagine the courage.
“I simply can’t imagine the courage.”
So true. Sadly, I don’t know if I could risk death the way these brave women have. Their strength is breathtaking.
It’s unbelievable to me that the rest of the world has not put more pressure on these types of regimes to stop killing and oppressing women. If a regime were to treat a racial group this way, there would be a huge price to pay on the international stage, but it’s “only” women, . . . so . . .