Since September, the protest movement has been growing in Iran. In France, the Iranian community speaks for their families and friends back home. This is the case of Bita, a violinist from the Pau orchestra. Every day, emotion takes precedence over the artistic. But she finds the strength to fight for the Iranian people.

On her mobile phone, she looks at the images of Iran while crying. “It’s been routine since the revolution in Iran started, assures Bita who does not want his name to be revealed. I spend a lot of time there for 2 months while social networks are not really my thing. A lot of info is coming to Instagram even though internet is restricted in Iran.”

Now based in Toulouse, Bita was born in Iran. She begins his learning of music at the age of 5, first through choral singing. Five years later, she entered the Tehran Conservatory to learn the violin. She performed a 1st prize there in 1980. But when the mullahs came to power, it was impossible to stay in her country. The Islamic revolution does not tolerate that a woman can play music like this.

She therefore follows the events, this Iranian revolution exposed by social networks from Toulouse.

“The Internet is a godsend for the Iranian people who can show the abuses of the regime all over the world. I will soon be in France for 40 years, but Iran remains my country. Part of Iran I I was just 20. When the mullahs came to power, I could no longer make music freely. I studied in Paris. I have a lot of family still in Iran but it’s not really for my family that I care about but for this young generation that falls in the streets, like the leaves of autumn.”

On edge, tears evoke when she evokes this youth and these courageous women in Iran.

“I am proud, very proud of this brave generation, it’s phenomenal. These girls who remove the emblem of the Islamic Republic in front of the executioner, the scarf put on their heads by force for 43 years. To not wear it Correctly, they are beaten in the street, tortured in prisons, sometimes even killed. Today they kidnap it and blow off the turbans of the mullahs, it is unheard of, it is prosperous. This union that ” There is between the man and the woman, it’s beautiful to see.”

Bita has more than one string to her fiddle. Part of Iran where free music is banned, it continued his studies in France at the Conservatoire National de Région de Rueil-Malmaison in the Paris region. She records with the Toulousaine Juliette, Romain Didier… She accompanies William Sheller with the Orchester de la Sinfonietta de Picardie.

Arrived in Toulouse in 1998, she is now a violinist in the orchestra of Pau. Today, steeped in emotion, she plays Nika’s song.

“It’s an old song. It was taken up by Nika, one of the first victims of this revolution. She was 17 years old. She dared to take off her headscarf and put it on a trash can. They shot her. We saw a video afterwards. She was with her friends, a microphone in her hand. She was singing this song. Now it has become Nika’s memory.”

“I do what I can, with my violin, with my voice, what is possible for me: to translate the poems of my uncle Morteza Rezvan who has always been in the resistance. The last one is called “My daughters”. I translated it to share it with my French friends. It’s part of a collection of poems he wrote when I was pregnant with my daughter Charlotte. I had to translate it so she could read it because she does not read Persian. We would like to have it published.”

Artist and activist, Bita slipped into the demonstration of support Saturday November 19, 2022 in the streets of Toulouse. As soon as she can, she joins the Iranian National Uprising Association to tell the world about her country’s situation.

“Today my country is wounded. It has always been so for 43 years, but never on such a scale. It is necessary today to draw the eyes of the world to what they are doing in silence. 2019, they killed 1600 people in total silence. Today this silence no longer exists, they are obliged to answer for their crime. Even if they are liars. Social networks provide so much evidence . We are dealing with a murderous, criminal state. We can no longer be silent.”

His parents differ their life between France and Iran. Faced with the terror that is exerted in Iran, Bita and its association want to obtain on December 3 all the cities of the south in Toulouse in the same spirit of support, the same voice.