Dhe square in front of the Alte Oper is a sea of flags and signs. The image of a beautiful young woman with a shawl loosely wrapped around her head is everywhere. They are all here because of Mahsa Amini’s death, which has sparked the current unrest in Iran, in which thousands are taking part. The 22-year-old Amini was arrested two and a half weeks ago by the vice squad in the capital Tehran because she had not worn the Islamic headscarf according to the rules. According to activists, she was beaten by the police and later died in hospital as a result.
Again and again the crowd shouts: “Jin Jiyan Azadi”, sometimes also in German: “Women – Life – Freedom”. It has become the triad of protest in Iran, and all demands revolve around these three terms. It was the first disenfranchised and patronized women in Iran who took off their headscarves and went public, demanding their freedom and thus a self-determined life for themselves and others, in open contradiction to the rules of the strict Islamic regime. “We will win back Iran,” chanted the demonstrators in Frankfurt.
The demonstrators chanted “Women, Life, Freedom” and “Down with the Islamic Republic of Iran”.
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Image: Tom Wesse
A speaker describes in Persian the violently beaten protest in Tehran and other Iranian cities with a tree from which a branch is cut off, but which will always grow new shoots, Ami Khatib translates. He came to Germany to study 38 years ago and has stayed in Frankfurt ever since. “When millions take to the streets, you can’t stop them,” is his hope for his parents’ country. It is striking that the spiritual leader of the mullahs’ regime, revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has not spoken out in public since the protests broke out, he says. He can’t say whether that’s a good sign either.
Many have come “to have a loud voice together,” as described by an elderly protester who declined to give her name. Many young people are there, men and women, most of them probably born in Germany, maybe not so connected to their parents’ country anymore? “Yes, definitely,” say Nazanin and Sarvenaz, both in their twenties. “We are all political. Our parents fled abroad from the mullahs and we grew up with this awareness here.” They too hope for changes in the land of their ancestors. “But that will only happen if other countries also take a stand,” Sarvenaz is certain.
Far more than 1000 people have gathered in Frankfurt in front of the Alte Oper, most of them have Iranian roots and some have traveled from far away. A striking number of people wear masks at the outdoor event. However, the fear of Corona plays less of a role than the Iranian secret service, says one participant in the demonstration. At a solidarity event a few days ago in Frankfurt, a man was noticed who is said to have photographed the faces of individual visitors one after the other. There is also the fear that the protesters in Germany could harm their relatives in Iran if they were identified.
The demonstration in Frankfurt is one of many around the world that sympathizers of the protesters in Iran called for on October 1st. In many large cities in Australia, Japan and Europe, people are commemorating Mahsa Amini and the struggle of young women and men “against the medieval regime in Tehran”, as one participant put it.
The song “Baraye” by the Iranian singer Shervin Hajipour is played again and again. Many demonstrators then pull the Persian lyrics out of their pockets and sing along loudly. The verses are a jigsaw puzzle of tweets published after Mahsa Amini’s death, telling what people in Iran want and why they are taking to the streets. Hajipour has turned these sad and hopeful lines into a soulful ballad. A few days ago he was arrested in Tehran, according to several Iranian exile media. Word of that has also gotten around in the crowd for a long time.
At the end of the event, the police even counted 2,800 people who then continued through the city to the Iranian Consulate General on Raimundstrasse. After the fire and paint smearing on the building in the past few days, the police were prepared. So she was able to prevent eggs from being thrown on Saturday evening, but a stone was also thrown, said a police spokesman. Nothing is currently known about property damage.
