In quest of democratic freedoms and civil liberties in a country devoid of secularism

A few days after the demonstrations in response to the death of Mahsa Amini and consequential violent outburst by the Iranian security forces in Iran started, my holiday?in the country came to?an end. I have been blessed with extraordinary experiences in an extraordinary?country with extraordinary?people. It sounds cliché when I say that I have been met with a level of hospitality?I have experienced nowhere else before to this extent.

This post is about the people and newly made friends in Iran who reached out in search of?a voice in response to the recent events.

While I was able to leave the country to go back to?a country where?I don't need?to be concerned about my democratic rights, they were not. The vast majority of people I was able to speak to across the country were looking for an escape even before this event happened, mostly to Western countries, in search for a way out of the countries crippling economic sanctions inflicting nothing but economic isolation, suffering on societal level and individual insecurity, further widening the already existing economic gap in Iran and increasing the Iranian diaspora leading to a brain drain effect in the country, seeking a way out of a country lead by a government that stipes?their citizens of their right to autonomy, of their personal voice and individual choices -- in short of their democratic values and civil rights. Desperate to find an outlet for individual freedoms and self-determination, where the ability for women to sit in female dedicated area in a football stadium is viewed as an a major victory in the face of their inability to do so in over 40 years, where women need to cover themselves by law and face intervention by the ‘morality police’ if they don’t abide by the rules, where girls can marry from 13 years onwards (earlier 9 years), where women need still permission from their family patriarch to marry (while men have the right to polygamy and can marry up to 4 times without any permission), where women still need cleric or court intervention to be able to divorce a man (while men don't) and get a fraction of the inheritance compared to men, where men are sometimes forgotten in their struggle to have to be bystanders to rules many of them don't support, affecting their mothers, sisters, wives and female friends and themselves who are also part of a society that struggles to uphold democratic values leading to arbitrary detention, where the death penalty is not only still legal but the cases among the highest in the world, where freedom of expression is limited and press mostly government controlled, where the government is corrupt, the need for change becomes apparent. The desire of people to have a government at peace with the world was expressed in the many heartfelt hugs I got in light of visiting a country under harsh economic sanctions, impacting daily life and their future, where many people seem to feel punished and isolated from the world for their governments actions many don’t agree with.

The death of Mahsa Amini was the tipping point for many after the regime engaged in a concerted crackdown on alleged anti-Islamic activity. The current protests are the latest manifestation of an incessant struggle by Iranian women and men for a secular, democratic Iran. One note that the young generation is not against religion in and of itself but against forceful restrictions and limitations dictated upon them by the state, calling for a renewed discourse on the importance of?secular states and its connection to democratic values and its antidote, theocratic states putting authorities of religious leaders in charge of political decisions leaving its citizens?at the mercy of clerical despotism and their hardline interpretation of religion – devoid of civil freedoms using force to impose compliance with man-made and man-centric rules.

It also forces us as a global community in a wider context to ask hard questions on how we can protect democratic values and why we see democratic values decreasing at such an alarming rate around the globe, including in Western countries. How democratic values evolve, or deteriorate, around the globe will directly impact all of us. It has not only a ripple effect on geo-politics and global economics but also on migration and on the development of us as species and the direction we want to take on this planet while?we are here being part of a wider ecosystem as well as the direction countries?pull each other more quickly into in light?of that very fact.?

The unity between women and men, standing hand in hand against theocracy and for civil freedoms marks a new generation of Iranians fighting for democracy, sovereignty, and independence. If we will witness the next 'Arab spring' in Persia is yet to be seen but we surely are bystanders of witnessing, and hopefully supporting, a new generation that moves its interests forward with bravery, courage and boldness in the face of government crackdowns and arbitrary violence and detention in search and hope for a better live--that is one where each one is able to choose?for themselves, however that choice may look like, and as long as it does not impede other people's naturally given rights.?

We stand with you, Iranian people!

#democracy #mahsaamini #iran #protest #women #womensrights #humanrights #iranrevolution2022

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??*views are my own