The story of “Uncle Sadegh” – a 70-year-old whose viral dancing videos were pulled from Instagram, then swiftly reinstated after a massive public backlash – appears to have gone global. In a new twist, Iranian men, women and teens have begun filming themselves dancing in public and in their homes in a show of defiance toward against the Islamic Republic’s miserable policies, and of solidarity with Sadegh Booghi. Even Iran’s minister of culture had to admit defeat and said, “We live in a new age when a song can go viral within a few minutes.” Sadegh is a cheerleader for a local football club in Rasht, north of Iran. If he lived in a normal country, he would be receiving contracts from producers and record companies. Instead, in the Islamic Republic he has to be careful about what he may sing next, and risk possible arrest and harassment.
Sadegh’s video went viral as Mahsa Zhina Amini and also all those bound up in the movement for freedom in Iran were honoured at the Sakharov Prize ceremony in Strasbourg. President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola said this year’s award was tribute to those who “continue the push for change”. As we reported last week, Mahsa’s mother, father and brother who were going to attend the ceremony were stopped at the airport and their passports were confiscated. In an exclusive interview, Amini family’s lawyer, and my former lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, told my colleague Aida Ghajarthat he is incensed and worried by the eleventh-hour travel ban imposed by Iranian authorities that stopped them from attending: “This family is bereaved. Zhina’s death didn’t touch just them but many in Iran and around the world.”
Conversely, we spoke to several people this week who had left Iran, against their will. Yahya Sarkhani, a veteran civil rights and environmental activist from Mahabad, whose left eye was blinded under torture in 2014 in prison. Then last year, Yahya was shot by security forces, with a pellet in his prosthetic eye. He is now sheltering in an unsafe country. We’re trying our best with the help of friends in different parts of Europe to find him a safe country that can offer him political asylum.
In one of the most horrifying stories we’ve ever published, a woman named Homa tells us about how she was forced to flee after security agents raided her office in 2013 because she had converted to Zoroastrianism, an ancient Iranian religion. On her way through the forests with children in tow, she was apprehended and repeatedly raped by plainclothes officers with the full assent of Greek police. Those men are squarely to blame for Homa’s horrific experience, but it was also the hateful and illegal policies pursued by the Islamic Republic against its own people at home that compelled her to leave. As such, they too are to blame.
More fake concessions to women inside Iran this week as 3,000 members of the female sex were allowed to watch a football game at Azadi Stadium. Alongside 60,000 men. Gosh. FIFA president Gianni Infantino trumpeted the move as a sign of “progress” on X, appropriately a platform that is rapidly becoming known for weapons-grade disinformation. Here on IranWire we’ve profiled three more important Iranian women – SoudabehEnsannejad, Iran’s first female lorry driver, Nazanin Daneshvar, founder of a vast online discount store and champion of domestic start-ups, and Farideh Farjam, the author, playwright and radio host who captivated generations with her folktales and contemporary commentaries – as part of our long-running series on women’s contributions to the fabric of modern-day Iran, something which apparently eludes or doesn’t trouble the likes of FIFA.
Happily at the moment, though, we are seeing increased levels of scrutiny on ex-Iranian regime figures abroad – Oberlin College in the US has just fired Mohamed Jafar Mallahati after campaigners highlighted his role in Iran’s 1988 prison massacre – and so external figures who cosy up blindly to the Islamic Republic are doing themselves a future disservice. The world is watching, more now than ever before.
Maziar
Credit To: Iranwire via Substack
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