On September 16, after the death of the twenty-two-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, beaten in the custody of the “morality police,” Iran’s Generation Z took to the streets in outrage and defied the brutality of the Islamic Republic. Amnesty International reported that more than twenty children have been killed since the beginning of the protest, some of them as young as eleven years old.
According to The New York Times, Ms. Amini was detained on accusations of not following the hijab laws of Iran. She was severely beaten during the arrest, and three days after, she died from her head injury. Iranian officials have denied any involvement in Ms. Amini‘s death and have insisted that she collapsed and ultimately died from a heart condition.
Nika Shakarmi and Sarina Esmailzadeh, both sixteen, were two other victims killed by the regime’s security forces. Shakarmi disappeared on September 20 after attending a protest. She was seen on multiple social media videos standing in a car, burning her hijab, and chanting with the crowd, “Death to the Dictator.” She was found dead ten days later. A death certificate obtained by BBC Persia shows that Ms. Shakarmi died after “multiple injuries caused by blows with a hard object.” Human-rights groups stated that Ms. Esmailzadeh, the other sixteen-year-old girl, died on September 23, after being beaten by police armed with batons.
The Iranian government again denied being involved in the teenagers’ deaths and alleged that the two girls committed suicide by jumping off rooftops. However, Amnesty International and Iran Human Rights stated that the police killed the two girls in an attempt to crack down on protesters. Shakarmi was found in Tehran with a broken skull, broken teeth and dislocated cheekbone. Esmailzadeh was killed in the city of Karaj by the security forces, who fractured her head and left her to bleed to death.
The Guardian reported that, to curb the uprising, the Iranian government sent security forces across the country, even into schools. A statement released by the Coordinating Council of the Iranian Teachers’ Trade Association said that, on October 13, sixteen-year-old Asra Panahi was beaten to death in Shahid high school for refusing to sing an anthem that praises Iran’s supreme leader.
Ravina Shamdasani, a UN Human Rights Office spokeswoman, stated, “Some sources suggest that as many as twenty three children have been killed and many others injured in at least seven provinces by live ammunition, metal pellets at close range, and fatal beatings.” A statement released by Amnesty International reports, “Iran’s security forces have killed with absolute impunity at least twenty three children and injured many more in a bid to crush the spirit of resistance among the country’s youth and retain their iron grip on power at any cost.”
On October 15, while visiting California, President Biden made brief remarks regarding the protest in Iran saying, “We stand with the citizens and brave women of Iran.” He added, “Women all over the world are being persecuted in various ways, but they should be able to wear in God’s name what they want to wear,” according to The Guardian.
It is not the first and will not be the last time when the young generation is the leading force in the fight for human rights and a better tomorrow. However, despite the striking images from the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the Communist party was still able to stay in power, and it would take more than twenty years after the twenty-year-old Czech student Jan Palach set himself on fire with the hope to “wake up the world” for the Russian army to leave occupied Czechoslovakia. Let’s hope that this time the voices of Iranian women are heard. That is why today, we, the students of Fieldston, stand in solidarity with the young people of Iran in their fight for freedom and the right to choose.
