Learning International Solidarity. Roundtable on the current situation in Iran with Mina Khani and Dastan Jasim

After the violent death of Zhina Amini on 16 September 2022, there are nationwide protests in Iran against forced veiling and against the dictatorial regime. Videos on social media show women removing their headscarves during demonstrations, shouting slogans against the system. Zhina Amini is a Kurdish woman who the world now knows as Mahsa because the Iranian state did not allow her family to officially call her Zhina – because it is a Kurdish name. The Iranian state initially claimed that the 22-year-old died of heart failure. In fact, she was probably beaten so badly during an arrest by the morality police that she died. The protests and strikes that began in Kurdistan in western Iran are unique in the history of Iran: for the first time, nationwide protests that oppose the entire system are specifically about gender justice, forced veiling and femicide.