Global 

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The Iranian, female-led revolution has ignited again.

When people hear the word Iran, what comes to mind? Nuclear weapons? Tensions with Israel and the United States? Perhaps saffron, if they’re lucky. Rarely do they think of women. Rarely do they think of resistance.

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This disconnect is not accidental. The Iranian regime has spent decades carefully controlling its image, obscuring the reality of what it does to its own people. For years, much of the Western world remained unaware (or unwilling to look) at the scale of violence, repression, and gender apartheid occurring inside the country.

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It wasn’t until the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising that global attention finally turned  Iran, after the state murdered a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, for allegedly wearing her hijab “incorrectly.” She was arrested by the so-called morality police and never returned home alive.

Before we talk about why Iranians are protesting today, we need to understand who they are.

Iran, historically known as Persia, is one of the oldest civilizations in human history. Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire, is remembered not only as a ruler, but as the author of the Cyrus Cylinder, widely regarded as the first declaration of human rights. It affirmed freedom of religion, the abolition of slavery, and governance through culture rather than force.

That legacy makes today’s reality painfully ironic: modern Iranians are denied even the most basic human rights.

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Historically, Iranians were Zoroastrian, followers of the world’s first monotheistic religion. Islam was imposed on Persia in the 7th century CE through conquest by the Rashidun Caliphate, accompanied by forced conversion, violence, rape, and systemic oppression. Yet despite centuries of colonization, Iranians preserved their language, culture, and traditions through resistance.

What Iranians understand, and what many outsiders do not, is this:
The problem has never been Islam.
The problem is extremism weaponized for power.

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The Islamic Republic of Iran is a totalitarian theocracy that uses religion as a tool of control. It does not represent Islam; it exploits it. Its laws are designed not to guide morality, but to dominate bodies, especially women’s bodies.

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Western media often reduces the protests to a single image: women removing their hijabs. This framing is dangerously simplistic. Iranian women are not protesting to “be naked.” They are protesting for autonomy.

They are protesting because:

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• A woman has no medical authority over her own body. Life-saving procedures, including hysterectomies, may require permission from a husband or father.
   

• Abortion is criminalized in nearly all circumstances, even in a country where rape by the state itself is documented.
   

• A woman’s legal worth is half that of a man’s.
   

• A woman cannot serve as a judge because she is deemed “too emotional.”
   

• A woman cannot divorce an unfaithful husband without three male witnesses.
   

• Marital rape is not a crime.
   

• Domestic violence is not criminalized.
   

• The legal age of marriage is 13, and 9 with parental consent.
   

• A woman cannot leave the country without her husband’s permission.
   

• A mother has no legal authority over her own child’s travel or documentation.
   

• Custody automatically goes to the father after divorce.
   

• Only a father or paternal grandfather can bail out an arrested daughter.
   

These are not rumors.
These are written into law.

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And when the law is not enough, the regime goes further. Women arrested for their appearance are taken to undisclosed locations where torture, sexual violence, and imprisonment are routine. This is not morality. This is terror.

To be a woman in Iran is to be legally erased. To be a mother is to be powerless. To exist is to be monitored.

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The women of Iran are not asking for sympathy. They are asking for solidarity.

Educate yourself. Speak their names. Refuse to reduce their struggle to a dress code. The responsibility to amplify their voices does not end at awareness, it begins there.

Zan. Zendegi. Azadi.
Woman. Life. Freedom.