LOS ANGELES — Cutting your hair is a sign of mourning in the Kurdish tradition, and from the streets of Tehran to the sidewalks of Los Angeles, activists like Yasmine Aker are mourning the death of Mahsa Amini.
“I’m here today because I feel like it’s my duty as an Iranian, and it’s my duty as a woman and as a feminist to stand with the women of Iran,” Aker said.
Southern California has the biggest concentration of Iranians outside of Iran, and it was clear Wednesday night as nearly a thousand people showed up in Westwood to demand accountability for the death of Amini.
Iran’s morality police in Tehran detained the 22-year-old on Sept. 13 for the way she was wearing her hijab. A video released by the government, which we cannot verify, shows her collapsing at a re-education center. She died a few days later. The Iranian government said it was an unfortunate incident and that it was investigating her death. Activists say it was foul play.
“Iranian women and men have a core fear of persecution by the Iranian government,” Aker said. “People are absolutely fed up.”
Aker said the morality police oppress women by enforcing Iran’s modesty laws and dress code.
“They force them to wear the hijab as a way to control them and as a way of silencing them,” she said.
One speaker, 21-year-old Pariya, shared her own experience with her hijab and the morality police.
“When I was 16-years-old, I was arrested in Iran by the same morality police,” she said. “I was visiting Iran from America with my family. They grabbed me off the street. Big army guy took me into the van and gave me no other choice.”
Pariya said she felt powerless.
“To this day, it still traumatizes me, and to see that a woman died over the same situation I was in, it’s like that could have been me, you know.”
The protests took place just hours after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi spoke at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, where he criticized the West for what he said was its double standard on human rights violations.
In the meantime, protesters in Iran have been killed and scores have been injured during the uprisings. Women keep making headlines for burning their hijabs and cutting their hair as protests continue. The Iranian government said it has restricted internet communication for safety reasons. Aker said it’s to suppress protests.
“We cannot be silent, because Iran has been silenced. So, we have to be their voice. We have to take to the streets, again, and again, and again, and again,” until Aker said, women in Iran can have basic freedoms and rights.