Iran has seen a lot of press recently. The main stories have surrounded the sanctions imposed by Donald Trump's administration and Iran seizing foreign tankers in the Gulf. Most recently, the government have been accused of blowing up a Saudi Arabian oil facility, resulting in a full-out war of words between the Ayatollah and the Crown Prince. Prior to that, the 15-day hunger strike of Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe, the British-Iranian incarcerated in Tehran on false espionage charges, and her husband Richard, outside the Iranian embassy in London:
The key reasons for the sanctions stem from Iran supporting militant groups and a nuclear deal set out by Barrack Obama and other nations. It issued a pact that the Republic would halt all uranium in exchange for lifting economic sanctions at the time. In 2018, Trump tore up the deal after speculation that the country had not stopped its enrichment programme. The sanctions have led to economic pressures on the regime as well as on the people of Iran. Inflation is at an all-time high, food prices have skyrocketed and unemployment is rife amongst the educated young. Worker protests are popular as is homelessness and hopelessness.
This upheaval is nothing new for the Iranian people. They have struggled for more than forty years living under an oppressive and corrupt regime. Since the Revolution of 1979 that was hijacked by Mullahs with the help of Jimmy Carter and Europe, Iran has been on a backwards spiral into the Stone Age. A country that was once on the verge of modernity and economic growth could go so far behind still baffles me to this day.
Fashion was big and Persians had a sense of style. The image of the two women remind me of pictures of my mother and the stories she would tell me of going to the disco (she still calls it that lol), wearing short skirts, coming home late one night and her parents not letting her back in so she climbed up into the window (now I know where I got my wild ways from...) I am not saying all women should behave like that but women should be free to wear what they want. Whether that is a hijab, a mini skirt, a bin bag or a long dress, women should fundamentally have the right to choose.
Iranian women's fight for freedom has long been going on and is a topic of discussion and awareness on various Farsi TV channels in the West including Manoto, VOA and Iran International. Females are assaulted by the morality police and FIFA recently said Iran cannot compete in the Olympics unless women are allowed in their stadium 👏. The powerful image of a girl waving her head scarf on a pole became a brave symbol of defiance and the cruel treatment and harsh sentence of people who say or do anything that opposes the regime.
