#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #USA #IRAN #TEHRAN #MAHSAAMINI #News #Journal #Update - (en) #usa #iran Black Rose BRRN: Interview: Iranian Anarchists on Protests in Response to Police Murder of Mahsa Amini (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Introduction ---- On September 13th, 2022, 22 year old Mahsa Amini was arrested

by an Iranian Guidance Patrol (also known as 'morality police'). Mahsa was
arrested in Tehran for not abiding by laws relating to dress. Three days later,
on September 16th, police informed Mahsa's family that she had "experienced heart
failure" and had fallen into a coma for two days before passing away. ----
Eyewitness accounts, including that of her own brother, make clear that she was
brutally beaten during her arrest. Leaked medical scans indicate that she had
experienced a brain hemorrhage and stroke-trauma induced injuries which
ultimately led to her death.
In the days since these details were revealed publicly, mass demonstrations have
broken out across Iran decrying Mahsa's murder at the hands of the police.

To better understand this rapidly changing situation, we conducted a very brief
interview with the Federation of Anarchism Era, an organization with sections in
Iran and Afghanistan.

This interview was conducted between the dates of 9/20/22 and 9/23/22.

Interview
Black Rose / Rosa Negra (BRRN): First, please give a brief description of the
Anarchist Federation of Era.

Federation of Anarchism Era (FAE): The Federation of Anarchism Era is a local
anarchist federation active in so-called Iran, Afghanistan, and beyond.

Our federation is based on the Synthesis Anarchism, accepting all anarchist
tendencies except nationalist, religious, capitalist, and pacifist tendencies.
Our many years of organizing experience within extremely oppressive environments
like Iran have led us to develop and utilize insurrectionist organizational
tactics and philosophy.

We are an atheist organization, viewing religion as a hierarchical structure that
is more ancient and enduring than almost all other authoritarian systems and much
too similar to capitalism and other authoritarian social structures enslaving
humanity today. Class warfare, from our perspective, includes warring against the
clergy class who rob us of our freedom and self-autonomy by defining the sacred &
taboo and enforcing them by coercion and violence.

BRRN: Who was Mahsa Amini? When, why, and how was she killed?

FAE: Mahsa Amini, know by her family as Zhina, was an ordinary 22-year-old
Kurdish girl from the city of Saghez (Saqez) in Kurdistan.

She traveled with her family to Tehran to visit families. On September 13th,
while with her brother, Kiaresh Amini, the morality police or the so-called
"Guidance Patrol" arrested Mahsa for "improper hijab." Her brother tried to
resist the arrest, but the police used tear gas and beat Kiaresh as well.

Many other arrested women witnessed what happened in the police van. Along the
way to the police station, there was an argument between detainee women and
police officers. Mahsa Amini was one of the girls protesting their arrest. She
was saying she was not from Tehran and should be let go.

The police used physical violence to shut all the detainee women up. Mahsa was
beaten as well. The eyewitnesses said the police officers hit Mahsa's head hard
to the side of the police van.

She was still conscious when she arrived at Moral Security Agency, but the other
detained women noticed that she looked unwell. The police were completely
indifferent and accused her of acting. The women kept protesting to help Mahsa
get the medical attention she needed. The protests were met with violence from
the police. Mahsa Amini was beaten severely by police again and lost
consciousness then.

Police then took notice and attempted to revive her by pumping her chest and
raising and massaging her legs. After those attempts failed, the police attacked
other women to confiscate all cellphones and cameras that may have recorded the
incident.

After much delay and finding the lost keys to the ambulance, Mahsa was taken to
Kasra Hospital.

The clinic which admitted Mahsa Amini claimed in an Instagram post that Mahsa was
brain dead when she was admitted. That Instagram post was later deleted.

On September 14th, a Twitter account with a friend working in Kasra Hospital told
the story that the police threatened the doctors, nurses, and staff not to take
any pictures or video evidence and to lie to Mahsa's parents about the cause of
the death. The hospital, being intimidated, complied with the police. They lied
to the parents that she was in an "accident" and kept her on life-support for two
days. Mahsa was declared dead on September 16th. Her cause of death from the
medical scans, leaked by hacktivists, shows bone fractures, hemorrhage, and brain
edema.

Demonstrators in Istanbul, Turkey hold up an image of Mahsa Amini.
BRRN: Did Mahsa's identity as a Kurd play a role in her arrest and death?

FAE: Undoubtedly, being a Kurd in Tehran played a role in Mahsa's eventual death.
But, this is a reality all women in Iran experience. We don't need to look far to
find video footage of the morality police beating and forcing women into police
vans, throwing women out on the street from a moving car, and being harassed by
Hijabi women for their "improper hijab." Those videos show just a tiny fraction
of the hell women experience in Iran.

Mahsa being with her brother on the day of her arrest was not random
happenstance. In Iran's patriarchal society, women should bring a male relative,
whether a father, husband, brother, or cousin, along with on their business to
ward off the morality police and discourage any surly individuals in public.
Young couples can't be seen too close to each other in public or risk being
beaten and arrested by the morality police. Relatives needed to have documents as
proof of their claims to the police. Arresting women for lipsticks and nail
polish was a reality many of us millennials in Iran remember vividly.

The threat of acid attacks for "bad hijab" is another nightmare women endure in Iran.

Patriarchy and religious autocracy affect all women.

BRRN: How did the Iranian people learn of Mahsa's death? What was the initial
popular response?

FAE: As we elaborated earlier, there were too many eyewitnesses. No amount of
threats could have stopped the story of Mahsa's death from leaking.

It is worth mentioning the doctor attending Mahsa and the photojournalist
documenting Mahsa's condition and her family in distress, were both arrested, and
their current status is unknown.

The initial response was outrage. People were already sharing Mahsa's story from
September 14th. The outrage was not yet strong enough for protests and revolts.
People still thought Mahsa was in a coma, and there was hope for her recovery.
Then, She was declared dead on September 16th.

First, there were small protests at Kasra Hospital, which were scattered by the
police. The sparks of the current uprising were lit in Saghez, Mahsa's hometown.

A police motorcycle is burned at a demonstration in Tehran.
BRRN: What is the scale of the current demonstrations? In what areas of the
country have the demonstrations been concentrated?

The situation is very dynamic and changing exceptionally rapidly. At the time of
writing this, the flames of the uprising have set 29 out of 31 provinces of Iran
on fire. One of the characteristics of this uprising is that it spread to major
cities across Iran, such as Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan, Ahvaz, Rasht, and others fast.

Qom and Mashhad, the ideological strongholds of the regime, have joined the
uprising. Kish island, the capitalist and commerce center of the regime, has also
revolted. This is the most diverse uprising we have witnessed in the last few years.

On September 23rd, the syndicalists are planning a general strike in favor of the
protests.

The regime has an armed demonstration planned on the same day. A lot is happening.

BRRN: How has the Iranian state responded to these demonstrations?

The regime's initial response was less brutal than we experienced before. One
reason is that they got caught off-guard. They didn't expect this strong
response. The more important reason is that Ibrahim Raisi is at the UN. The lack
of senior authority figures, publicized story of Mahsa and protests, and the
pressure on the government being watched by the international community have
stopped the massacre for now.

Don't get us wrong. Police killed and injured many people from day one of the
protests. Some among them were 10 years old children and 15 years old teenagers.
But, we experienced November 2019 when the regime massacred many thousands of
people in 3 days.

In all the previous uprisings, the police were not directly the target of the ire
of people. Not this time. They are the baddie this time, and people are out for
their blood. This wears them down physically and mentally, which we take as good
news.

Right now, Saghez and Sanandaj are experiencing ruthless suppression. The regime
has brought tanks and heavy military vehicles to suppress the uprising there.
There are many reports of live ammunition being shot at protestors.

The protests are still going. The police cars are being flipped. The police
stations were scaled and burned down. We just need to arm ourselves by looting
their armory. Then, we enter another phase of revolt altogether.

A barricade constructed at a demonstration in Tehran on 9/21/22.
BRRN: Is it accurate to call these demonstrations feminist in character?

FAE: Yes, Absolutely. Like all other uprisings, there were developments and
movements beneath the surface.

It can be said that the recent crackdown on the Hijab and increased brutality of
the morality police started in response to Iranian women's spontaneous,
autonomous, and feminist self-organization. Earlier this year, women in Iran
began to black-list and boycott people and businesses, such as cafes, that
strictly enforce the Hijab. The movement was decentralized and leaderless, aimed
at creating safe spaces for women and members of the LGBTQ community.

That brutal oppression culminated at this moment where women are at the forefront
everywhere, burning their scarves and beating down cops without Hijab. The main
slogan of the uprising is also "Woman, Life, Freedom," a slogan from Rojava, a
society whose ambitions are based on anarchist, feminist, and secular ideology.

BRRN: What political elements (organizations, parties, groups) are present in the
demonstrations, if any?

FAE: Many organizations, parties, and groups attempt to appropriate or influence
the protests for their benefit at every uprising.

The majority of them ran into an unscalable problem during this uprising.

First, The monarchists. Reza Pahlavi, the deadbeat son of so very dead previous
Shah of Iran, an individual being propped up by stolen money and media networks
outside Iran, called for a national day of mourning amidst public outrage and
initial protests instead of using his resources to assist the revolt. People
finally saw him for the charlatan that he is. "Death to oppressors, whether Shah
or Leader," was heard all across Iran.

Then, MEK or Mujahedin Kalq. MEK has an ideological problem with this uprising.
They are a cult whose women members are forced to wear red scarves. Their origin
story is from combining Marxist and Islamic ideologies, hijacked by
Marxist-Leninists before 1979, to the cult in service of capitalist and
imperialist states today. Yet, the women in Iran are burning their headscarves
and Quran. They have no say in this political climate.

Then, there are communist parties who despise Rojava and always speak ill of it.
Their debunked and rusty class analysis doesn't help them win hearts here.

With all their talks and propaganda of being proponents of secularism and
feminism, they didn't even have one slogan geared toward women's liberation. And
their ideology prevented them from chanting "Women, Life, Freedom." They had
nothing to say, so they shut up. Thanks to that, their presence is much weaker in
the protests today.

The Anarchist movement is growing in Iran. This uprising, being leaderless,
feminist, anti-authoritarianism, and chanting Rojava slogans, led to anarchists,
affiliated and unaffiliated with the federation, having a strong presence in this
uprising. Unfortunately, many have been arrested and injured as well.

We are working to realize the anticapitalist potential of this movement. Because
the Islamic Republic is a death cult and religion, patriarchy, racism, and
capitalism are its ideological pillars. For us to live, we need to be free; and
that can't be done without women's liberation at the forefront.

University student demonstrators in Tehran on 9/19/22
BRRN: In solidarity. Thank you for your time.

FAE: Solidarity.

https://blackrosefed.org/iranian-anarchists-on-demonstrations-in-response-to-police-murder-of-mahsa-amini/
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