Hundreds protest in Lisbon to give voice to a new revolution in Iran – Observer
More than two hundred people demonstrated this Saturday in Lisbon against political repression in Iran, in the context of protests triggered by the death of young Mahsa Amini for “improper” use of the Islamic veil, calling for a revolution in the country.
Among the demonstrators present in Rossio live in Iranian citizens to Portugal, namely women, who were not their voice in defense of their rights and spoke after the people they will face increasingly protected, of Tehran having had a safe tax on Internet access as a means to contain a social revolution. A year of those people was Vahneshan, 24, who let the country sing in the name of the dream of all time.
“I couldn’t sing in my country and I came here to have a better and freer life, but not everyone has that opportunity. I hope these days will end very quickly, because it has been like this for 40 years and our country was not like this. needed help from all over the world”, I tell the report of Lusa the young Iranian, who has not participated in the musical talent contest The Voice (RTP1).
Living in Portugal for four years, Ava, about four years old in Portugal, assumed that a situation in Iran is “very complicated”, reminding people that she liked the family that was left behind when she left the country: “I have grandparents, friends and there and as they cut the internet, every day is getting worse. It started with the [morte de] Mahsa Amini, but they kill people every day, especially young people, because the elderly are at home and do not have the strength to go out into the streets. Is very difficult”.
With the Iranian flag painted on both sides of her face and her dark hair loose in the Lisbon light, Solmaz Nazari also arrived in Portugal four years ago. Born in Tehran, highlighting – in very clear Portuguese – the strangeness of the early days in a land where the use of the hijab [véu islâmico] it was no longer a policy.
“I remember when I was here in the early days… when I wanted to leave the house I was always looking for my handkerchief. 24 or 2 years living in Iran”, he recalled, just dictating the finger to “a governor installed because of the hijab” in Tehran: “Mary installed because of the hijab” for showing a little hair. For example, I cannot walk like this in Iran.”
The Mahsa revolution in the 1st century Amini already existed among the people, in the face of a century of libertiesbut Solmaz expressed the belief that the will for change in his country will become a reality because only, maintained the young protester, then 29 years old, can it be a return to the motherland.
“All the Iranian people who are here already know that they will not return to Iran. Until there is a revolution, we cannot go back. Our sisters and brothers are with our brothers every day… We all die here, our land, family, friends and leave the country. We are fed up with this government”, he summarized, with no hope of reforming the regime: “If anyone doesn’t give the people freedom to choose, how can the clothes on the body change less?”
At 37 years old and living in Portugal for nine years, Sahar still asks not to give her nickname, for fear that the regime’s repression could affect her or her family members. Despite hoping to have more freedom within an Iranian family, she said the new generation has achieved freedom without leaving their door.
“The government needs to hear: the law has to change, because the people have already changed. There are other people there who choose religion, choose an outfit, choose everything. I think at this moment these young people don’t want this anymore. Formerly, control in which the people already control us, but new control, as long as no chants in solidarity with the people of their country, both in Persian and generation, to the sound of “Grândola Vila Morena”.
But not just Iranian women raising their voices. Iranian men were also heard in the protests, which were no longer just to demand equal rights for women, but to defend the right to change in their country, as explained by 30-year-old Babak Ghanbari.
“In the past, the government had the decision to close the country, but now with social networks it is no longer possible. It is a road of no return. Light for the future and for women”, she said, highlighting: “Now the life of women in Iran is very important for us. We men can live [de forma] almost normal, but for women it is not normal. I think in the future we will have 100% freedom for Iranian women.”
And it was for this dynamism that the present of his Sabouina Sabouti changed the demonstration this Saturday in Lisbon Seeking to undo the “wrong impression” of Iran, he remembered a social freedom that did not exist before 1979, the year of the Lamic Revolution that changed the social face of the country and that said country a social face that always had protests.
“It is the Islamic Republic that has problems with women’s rights, it is not the Iranian people. People forgot that I was a free country, without failing to call attention to the “Green Movement” of protest protests that women forgot in 2009 and women10 when they socially marked the country in 2009, died. than 1,500 people in protest actions.
And the 41-year-old activist concluded: “The regime does not want women to have rights, To use the obligatory hija as a symbol for the regime are Islamic and are to put people down. That’s why it has to change. But the whole regime has to change and not just on the issue of women’s rights”.