Freedom from religion is a human right

For the last few weeks there have been an abundance of women protesting and risking their lives in Iran because of a woman killed in police custody.

Mahsa Amini, who was only 22 years old, was arrested earlier this month by the modesty police for allegedly violating dress code. She died days after being taken into custody, with her family disputing the claim that she had violated the dress code, an NPR article published Tuesday stated.

Since then, women have been protesting Iran’s clerical rule, which has imposed Islamic law on the country since the revolution in 1979, by burning their headscarves, wearing tight-fitting clothes and cutting their hair in public. 

The protestors, many of them young women, face death or time in prison, since according to Islamic law, all women must dress modestly in long and loose-fitting clothes and cover their hair and chests.

Despite the number of women risking their lives for the chance to make a change in their country, the foreign minister said in an interview with the Morning Edition that these protests will change nothing and to not “play with the emotions of the Iranian people.” He believes that nothing will really happen and, when the investigation into Amini’s death comes to a close, everything will go back to normal.

In all honesty I think Amini’s death might that been the needle that broke the camel’s back, and these protests are only the beginning.

While I am in no position to judge to religious views of others, as we all have the right to believe whatever we’d like, I can call out oppression when I see it.

And the way the regime treats Iranian women is pure oppression.

The regime has chosen to control women and disguise it as helping them obey the Qur’an.

I have always believed that religious views should stay out of politics, regardless of what kind of government is in place. Letting those religious views dictate the laws of the land only leave room for instances like this. 

Where a group of people are treated as second-class citizens and submit to the rules set for them sometimes out of fear finally stand up and demand something different. The oppression has consequences, and I think that the economic and political failures of the regime are finally starting mix with the feelings of discontent surrounding the treatment of women.

However, I can’t help but be a little skeptical that these protests will stick and create change. This is not the first time people have protested the system in Iran. Some are saying that the protests going on now are scarily like those that happened in 1979. The regime is powerful, and I am afraid that it will do the same as what it did to those in the revolution.

I believe that these women have the right to choose, just as any woman should. The regime should not control women with the fear of being arrested or killed. Women should want to follow the rules of Islam and make the choice on their own.

Despite my skepticism regarding change, my deepest hopes and sympathies go out to the women and men that are out protesting, praying that things will go differently this time. They are incredibly brave, and their fight will not be forgotten.