Frankfurt Mayor Eskandari-Grünberg on the protests in Iran

Ms. Eskandari-Grünberg, on September 13, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was arrested in Tehran for not dressing modestly enough. Why did she have to die?

Mahsa Amini had protested against her arrest, she had fought back. A journalist accidentally observed the scene and circulated photos of it, which is how the public learned about it. This journalist was later arrested as well. Now no one knows where she is.

Since the young woman’s death, protests against the strict rules of the mullahs’ regime have spread across the country. You are from Iran yourself and fled from the mullahs 37 years ago. How do you feel about the news?

I am sad and angry. Sad about the death of a young woman who is simply imprisoned because her headscarf was loose. And then dies in custody. Angry because women’s rights are constantly being violated in Iran, and this systematic oppression has been intensified in recent years. When women’s rights are violated, human rights are violated and then there can be no democracy. But I also have hope because so many are now rebelling against the conditions. They have universal rights. There are women who say: you can arrest us, you can beat us, but we won’t give up.

In the videos from Iran that are circulating on social media, the crowd keeps shouting “women, life, freedom”. For a few days there has been a mural in Frankfurt with the likeness of Mahsa Amini, alongside these three terms. Why has this become a motto?

Because “women, life, freedom” are inseparable. As long as women are not free, there is no freedom of speech, there is no freedom of art, then there is no journalism and much more.

Is the protest mainly carried out by women?

It was started by women, but then young people, and now men too, came along. The young people see that they have no future in Iran. On the Internet you can see what is possible in other countries. In Iran they are not allowed to listen to music or dance. They are not allowed to study whatever they want, only if they are supporters of the regime. The third group are workers, taxi drivers, ordinary people who have accumulated poverty, hunger and discontent under the regime. Because this regime offers the people in this beautiful country no prospects.

What is the situation of women in Iran?

Women are oppressed in many ways: there are no divorces, no custody, no right to abortion. They are essentially seen as her husband’s possessions. Sharia, Islamic law in Iran, thrives on feelings of guilt and the threat of God’s punishment. In Iran, women are punished for showing their hair when putting on makeup. Anyone who breaks these rules is considered a whore, indecent. And the men, whose property the women are supposed to be there, become allies of the system because they have to make sure that their wives don’t become “indecent”. This is the social control system of totalitarian systems that operate in order to stay in power. This applies to women as well as journalists and artists. But now, during the protests, men in Iran are also saying: no, it’s not our women who are indecent, the regime is. And they stand with women.

Iranian women cut their hair in several videos online.

That’s a very powerful image. You’re saying: If my hair is an unwanted stimulus, then I’d rather not have it, then I’ll make myself ugly, cut it off. But they don’t want to bend down and wear the headscarf. I saw a video of a young woman crying all the time while cutting off strand by strand her long hair while looking at the camera. That touched me very much. I’m sure these pictures will go down in history: how women burn their headscarves, how they cut their hair.

What else have you seen?

I had to laugh a lot at another video clip: It shows an elderly woman on the bus with her hair loose, who is being approached by moral guardians to put on her headscarf. And she calls out to them: “Does that bother you? Then don’t look!” That’s great!