Terrible events in Iran by brutal police

There is a growing movement of women cutting their hair, celebrities posting online and everyday girls and women. This started in Iran when females cut their hair when they removed their head coverings,

Along with the many protests happening all over Iran have culminated in police brutality and the death of several women in custody.

They are being urged to send their hair to Iranian Embassies.

So many dreadful things happening in other countries. Makes me thankful that I and my family live here, warts and all, or Australia.

I have just seen this on Twitter, heartbreaking

It is heartbreaking to see what these brave women and girls are enduring. And these inadequate brutes that are enjoying their sadism claim to be the moral ones!

They are so brave and in such dangerous circumstances. Looks like the revolution is swelling though and lots of men are supporting the women and girls too.
The so called modesty police are a bunch of perverts!

They are incredibly brave.

They are brave and beautiful and astonishing. The reaction is predictable and I would just fear the worst but for one thing - they are often supported by young men from their own generation (and presumably, some family member too.) Yes it is great to live somewhere where as women we have more freedoms but we still face domestic and sometimes public abuse: just to hope and do whatever we can so one day wherever we live..its OK to be powerful and true to ourselves as women.

I think they are amazing, in a world of troubles I wish them yet more courage and strength.

Am pleased to see that some Gransnetters are troubled by this matter and want to comment.I feel it is the least we can do here in the West to condemn the so called modesty police who are no more than cruel cowards, and to applaud women there, and men too who are adding their voices to this outrage.

I’m in awe of the women and now the men who are demonstrating. They are so brave to stand against the militant Muslim state.

The same applies to anyone who demonstrates against corrupt regimes, Russia for example.

I don’t think I’d be brave enough.

So many women in the world oppressed.

On R4 at the moment.

Listen to the song, its explained in the text.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNhEoQara9A

And personally I think its a shame we are not part of this movement, but the reporting is very up to date

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DhERjciVVE

I find it very heartening to see the numbers of men, not at all only the young ones, who are supporting the women. There was a video I saw recently, can't remember where, but one of the 'morality police' attacked a woman and not only women but men defended her and 'saw off' the abuser. He wasn't so brave when it wasn't just women objecting! With men and women fighting together for female rights they can win.

Prentis
I have been commenting on other sites.
Perhaps you could have given Mahsa Amini respect by naming her.
May she rest in peace.
And please don’t think it’s only men who are abusing the women. There are videos of women violently attacking women like a pack of hyenas.

Mahsa was the first that the world outside Iran new about.

I doubt if she was the first and I know she will not be the last.

My thoughts and prayers are with all the courageous young women.

I am glad to hear that you have MerylStreep.
I did not know the names of the many young women who have been abused and killed there, and I have the utmost respect for them all.
There may well be women also acting in abusive ways there towards others, but the killings are done by the morality police who are men.
Let us try and be non aggressive to each other on this matter.
It would be a wonderful thing if this movement to get reform for women in Iran works.

" There are videos of women violently attacking women like a pack of hyenas."

It will always be thus initially.

On a different scale, physical violence wise, but the millions of women who opposed women wanting rights in the UK in the fight not just for the vote, but even before, for example the Married Women's Property Act in 1882, many women believed it was against either or both god's law or the Natural Order of matters for women to be "owned" effectively by men and were actively hostile.

When oppression is internalised by the victim, they are afraid, fear breeds hostility. And other complex feelings.

Prentice
It was the death of Mahsa Amini that sparked the riots.
I just want her name heard. It’s not too much to ask when your asking for comments, is it ?

This is true Wyllow3
On a more trivial note, I remember a fellow worker saying that it wasn’t a good thing that there was now a woman reading the news, as a woman could not sound as ‘grave’ as a man when reading out tragic stories.How we have moved on since those days.

There seems to be an assumption that the Gashte Ershad (morality police) are all male. This is not the case. I have seen them in action on a couple of occasions and a typical unit, usually in a cruising van, has a mixed crew. I was appalled by what I witnessed but even more so to see women as members of the crew.

Chapeau
The video I watched showed these women trying to strip the woman they were attacking. If it wasn’t so sick it would be laughable ?
The morality police trying to strip a woman on a public street in front of men !!! You couldn’t make it up.

Prentice

This is true Wyllow3
On a more trivial note, I remember a fellow worker saying that it wasn’t a good thing that there was now a woman reading the news, as a woman could not sound as ‘grave’ as a man when reading out tragic stories.How we have moved on since those days.

When I was 15 a comedy programme on R4 I'll never forget it.
this was for real.

Usual set up for the time - group of comedy men with token woman.

Male voice,

" Imagine a woman reading the news!"

Woman's voice,

"Ooooo, the prime minister has just visited a factory, just imagine the girls have got all dressed up, I bet they spent ages on their make up today"...(you get the drift).

I honestly don't know if I'd have the courage those young people have.

None of us know how brave or not we would be until it happened to us, but fortunately there are always some who will speak out.
I can well believe that sketch on radio 4.I cannot remember the date when a woman first read the news on the BBC but think it was around 1969/1970 sort of time.What shocked me was that a woman could decry this as my fellow worker did.
My heart goes out to women who are oppressed anywhere,
Afghanistan and Iran are particularly awful regimes.

It’s horrible, and is part of a wider global pattern of rolling back women’s rights. The things happening in Iran are brutal and extreme, but the reversal of Roe v Wade in the US and the erosion of women’s spaces here is part of the same trend. South Korea has scrapped the ‘gender ministry’ which existed to protect womens’ rights - on a greater or lesser scale it is happening everywhere.

I don’t know if it’s because economies are contracting or a backlash against the way women were making progress in living independently, but I genuinely fear for our granddaughters, and despair at how other women collude with their sisters’ oppression.

I would like to think that the riots in Iran will start a return to more secular values that give young women there the rights that their grandmothers had, but I’m not very optimistic I’m afraid.