‘A free Iran can supply the free world with oil and gas’
Despite some heavy rain showers, more than a thousand people showed up in Brussels on Saturday for the abolition of the compulsory headscarf in Iran. And that is only possible, as completely clear to the demonstrators, the regime in Tehran also disappears.
On Saturday, for the time in three weeks, a group of actual demonstrators gathered on the second Troonplein in Brussels, around the second investigation of King Leopold II. All over the world, including in the Belgian capital, demonstrations are taking place that support the Iranian ‘women’s protest’. That massive protest movement came down on September 16. Kurdish-Iranian woman Masha Amini died in a hospital in Tehran. She was severely beaten in a police cell. The vice squad had not carried out Masha Amini according to the regulations, based on her obligatory hijab headscarf.
Tens of thousands of protesters across Iran then demanded the abolition of the hijab and an end to government violence against women. The execution of all denied the execution of Amini’s death and executed with a brutal repression. The NGO Iran Human Watch has recorded more than 200 deaths, including 23 children. As a result of that repression, the Islamic Republic of Iran itself is today under discussion. That protest against the Islamic Republic was even central in Brussels as the demand that it is not the state but the Iranian woman who decides whether and how she wears a headscarf or not. Hence, an Iranian flag (Islamic Republic version) was dragged along the ground for the preserved time, and continuously trampled and also spat on by protesters. The anger runs deep.
The 33-year-old Basiri is one of the words of the organizing action committee. Basiri’s parents fled to Belgium in 1979 during the Iranian Revolution. Their daughter Ava was born in Vilvoorde. Today works as ‘custom satisfactory manager’ for a major Belgian producer of boilers and heat pumps. Now there is also a political commitment. She describes herself on LinkedIn: ‘go-getter. Nsomething is impossible, you just have to want it and go for it.’
Ava Basiri: What really matters is that our country was hijacked by the Islamic Republic 43 years ago. For more than four decades, the people have been obliged to undergo Islamic law. This is not what the people have wanted. Especially the Iranian women suffer from this legislation. Women do not enjoy freedom. Masha Amini is also not the first woman who has been arrested by the vice squad and has not made it out of prison alive. Dozens of women have been caused by police brutality, including children. But Masha Amini was the woman too much. That is why the Iranian people have revolted. We want a complete overthrow of the Islamic State and the Iranian regime. That is currently against the real battle: the people the state. And this requires all the support, including from abroad. We can take to the streets in Brussels with our demands, but in Iran they are not allowed to demonstrate, at the risk of their own lives. Even today, people have been shot and killed in Iran again.
That is why you insist: freedom for the Iranian woman can only come when the Islamic Republic disappears. A new and free Iran has proven to be the precondition.
Basiri: And not just for women. Homosexuality still carries the death penalty by hanging. And furthermore, there is not the slightest respect for women of human rights. Iranian women who live abroad and are married are not allowed to sleep in the same room as their husbands. After all, Iran only recognizes its own religiously signed marriages.
So from Iran there is a compelling demand for foreign countries to put pressure on the regime?
Basiri: The Iranian people want us to protest. In the first place to put pressure on our own governments in this way. They must all take measures so that the Islamic Republic is trapped, and the leaders there have no choice but to resign.
The Flemish Parliament adopted a resolution last week in which state violence against the demonstrators was made.
Basiri: That is of course good, but not enough. It must be more. As much as possible, direct diplomatic pressure should be placed directly. A first step could be to the elite of the United States, Canada, Germany but also Belgium. Let their children live in the same oppressive conditions as all the other girls and boys in Iran.
Today there is also a political discussion of Iranian women here in Belgium usefully whether they should automatically be entitled to the status of.
Basiri: In any case, a clear screening must be done. If they want to come here to escape and get freedom, then of course they do. At the same time, a proper screening is still necessary to stop employees of the secret services. Constantly there are attempts to infiltrate the protest movement through that route. Be sure that, for example, here, at this demonstration, continuous photos are taken of those present. Those images go directly to Iran. And in no time, the fathers, mothers, daughters and sons of persons who can start to argue like this are being picked up. Even outside Iran we still have no freedom.
The war in Ukraine has resulted in almost all of our political attention, but also on preserving our prosperity, especially by keeping gas and electricity prices. In practice, then, there is not much room left for much political solidarity with countries in another part of the world.
Basiri: although a free Iran could be part of the solution to your problems. Iran has plenty of raw materials. A free Iran can supply the free world with oil and gas. A free Iran is therefore an advantage for the whole world. Russia turns off the tap, Iran’s could be open and thus help the free world.
purple flags
Another this. After the first demonstration, philosopher van Liever De Cauter wondered why the Belgian left had been virtually absent: women’s political parties, social movements, trade unions, Third World and organizations… in the wider Middle East since the outbreak of the Arab Spring (2010-2012). That was one question too many, because the most important Third World and women’s organizations were voting on De Cauter’s criticism. There were still no Saturdays, not visible from recognizable meetings. However, there were many individual Belgians who came to show their support for the Iranian protest.
The young feminist generation was also there, even very visibly, with banners and a lot of purple flags from Campagne Rosa, a left-wing feminist organization that naturally stands up for women’s rights, but which links the struggle with attention to the world third of the general struggle. She every support demonstration ‘for a good cause’, be it Iran’s women’s protest for the climate cause. They argue without complexes: it is not because they support women in Iran who want to get rid of the headscarf that they therefore do not support women in Belgium who do want the headscarf. ‘In our society, it can be a confirmation of one’s own identity’, say the activists of Campagne Rosa: ‘It is also too bad that in times of dire teachers so many schools with headscarves are refused in schools to teach too short. .’ Conclusion: ‘Actually, in Belgium it is about the same struggle as in Iran: it is not the government that determines what a woman wears, but the woman herself.’