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Women rising up against Iran's regime: journalist and activist Masih Alinejad
Iran is facing the biggest uprising Iran since the so-called "Green Movement" in 2009.
The rallying cry began after a young woman, Mahsa Amini, died after being beaten by cops for not wearing her headscarf properly. Since then, more than 14,000 people have been arrested, at least 326 killed, and one executed.
On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer speaks to Iranian journalist and activist Masih Alinejad, a sworn enemy of the Supreme Leader; it's widely believed that Iranian spies have tried to kidnap and assassinate her in New York.
From Alinejad's perspective, for the first time in Iran's history, people are setting aside long-held sectarian divisions — including toward minority Kurd and coming together to protest the regime.
And many even cheered the national soccer team's elimination at the World Cup because some players were seen as puppets of the regime.
She has a clear message to the West: If you want to help, don't go back to the 2015 nuclear deal and let Iranians bring about regime change on their own.
This interview was featured in a GZERO World episode: "Iran v. the Islamic Republic: Fighting Iran’s gender apartheid regime" on December 12, 2022.
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Iran's people vs. hardline rulers
Woman. Life. Freedom.
Those three words have filled the streets of Iran since the women-led protests agains the regime erupted last September.
The rallying cry began after a young woman, Mahsa Amini, died after being beaten by cops for not wearing her headscarf properly.
Since then, more than 14,000 people have been arrested, at least 326 killed, and one executed. It's the biggest uprising Iran has seen since the so-called "Green Movement" in 2009, Ian Bremmer explains on GZERO World.
Until recently, there seemed to be an opening for political reform on women in Iran.
But those hopes were dashed in 2021, when the the Supreme Leader's handpicked candidate won the presidential "election".
It's hard to say what'll happen next, although the regime will likely hang on. But even if the protesters do succeed, it's unclear what "winning" will mean. Or what cost it will exact.
Watch the GZERO World episode: Iran v. the Islamic Republic: Fighting Iran’s gender apartheid regime
How the Iranian regime’s brutality is backfiring
Iran's crackdown on the ongoing women-led protests against the regime has been fierce — but uneven. Protestors in the Kurdish region, for instance, have faced brutal, and frequently fatal backlash from the government.
Yet the people have come out everywhere.
Why? "The more that they kill, the more people get angry to take back to the streets," Iranian activist and journalist Masih Alinejad tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.
And the unity, she adds, is scaring the regime. For the first time in Iran's history, Alinejad says, people are setting aside long-held sectarian divisions — including toward minority Kurd and coming together to protest this regime.
Watch the GZERO World episode: Iran v. the Islamic Republic: Fighting Iran’s gender apartheid regime
Iran's morality police: not disbanded
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take to kick off your week. There's plenty to talk about around the world but I wanted to focus a little bit on Iran. We've had over two months of demonstrations across the entire country, grassroots, mostly young people, led by women in opposition to the morality police and the incredibly oppressive treatment that women in particular have in that country, not least of which, the forced wearing of the hijab under penalty of arrest.
Now, it's very interesting that over the course of the weekend, there was all sorts of headlines put out that the Iranian government announced that they were abolishing the morality police, and if that were true, it would be a big deal. Remember, Iran, for over two months, the only response to the demonstrations has been repression, and the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, came out just a week ago and said that he would not listen to the voice of the people. He absolutely rejected that, and instead, what we've seen is more arrests and increasingly, we're seeing harsh sentences being put against those people that have been involved in demonstrations. In some cases, even the death sentence.
If the morality police were actually abolished, that would be a big deal and there were major headlines in the New York Times and the BBC and Reuters and others that indeed made that announcement. Unfortunately, that's not what actually is happening. This was one government official who said that it was closed in response to a press conference question, the morality police, as opposed to suspended or abolished. And in that regard, it doesn't mean that it was disbanded.
Indeed, when this what they call guidance force, that's the literal term of the morality police, became a part of the law enforcement force under then President Ahmadinejad, you remember the Member's Only jacket guy with the beard, it was then renamed as a police force for social security. So for all we know, the statements that were made could literally be made that they don't have guidance police/morality police anymore because they've already used that name change. In other words, there's nothing thus far that shows that there is any change in actual policy or enforcement on the ground in Iran, and certainly just even today, we've seen more harsh repression against demonstrations. There's no reason to believe that.
Now, I pointed that out to the New York Times yesterday and asked them to clarify or take down their headline. They have thus far refused to do so. It feels too cute by half. It makes it seem as if the Iranian government is responding to the demands of the demonstrators, that the demonstrators are winning. That's not at all the case on the ground. I wish it were but we need the major newspapers and media outlets in the world to be honest, and when they make a mistake, admit that they make a mistake.
And I'm quite disturbed actually that this has been handled this way, especially because there are all sorts of bad actors and political actors that are willing to take a mistake like this and run with it and say that these media organizations are no good at anything. And of course, the mainstream media across the board, whether it tilts left like the New York Times or it tilts right like Fox or the Wall Street Journal, have been losing a lot of credibility over the course of the last years, especially given the preponderance of social media actors, and so this doesn't help, doesn't help at all. So we don't know about what's happened, if anything, to these police.
There is an open question as to whether or not there will be any shift as to behaviors that are tolerated, specifically the hijab. And as of right now, harassing women on the streets is an important way, a critical way that the theocratic regime in Iran exhibits its power and I think giving that up permanently will be incredibly difficult for the Iranian government to do. Now, if they were to do that, that would be a big deal. That would be an enormous win. It would weaken the theocracy significantly and it would create much more capacity for rank and file Iranians, especially women, to live their lives in a normal way, but I personally doubt it, especially in a systematic way.
I think the question of the hijab goes well beyond the morality police and it's actually turned into a barometer, a quick way of understanding who is a believer, an insider, and who is a nonbeliever, an outsider. It's a tool through which the citizen's willingness to submit to the practices that it finds oppressive and abhorrent is tested every day and imposed, from getting a driver's license to a passport to entering government buildings, women have to practice the ritual of a correctly donned hijab, and I think that that level of imposed ritual is incredibly important to the perceived legitimacy and power of the theocracy.
It is the core of what they are fighting over right now, even if that's not what they're saying on the streets, and as a consequence, I will be enormously impressed, you'll hear it from me, I'll be very happy and the outpouring of emotion that we see around the world in sympathy and alignment with these women on the streets that are taking their lives in their own hands by yelling and screaming for freedom and taking off their hijab, I think it's a huge deal. But so far, no reason to believe that the Iranian government is changing its behavior and I will believe it when I see it.
So that is where we are right now on the Iranian situation on the ground. We'll do our best to continue to get you everything we know and analyze those things we're not certain of, and we'll talk to y'all real soon. Thanks and be good.
Malala Yousafzai speaks during the Transforming Education Summit on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in Manhattan, New York.
What We’re Watching: UNGA meets amid global crises, Hungary scrambles to secure EU funds, protests persist in Iran
UNGA high-level talks begin
World leaders are gathering at the United Nations headquarters in New York this week for the annual General Assembly. The event kicked off Monday with a summit on education. On the plus side, they’re attending in person for the first time since the pandemic began. On the down side, the world is as divided as it’s been at any time since the Cold War. An overarching item on the agenda will be the ongoing war in Ukraine — debate will focus not only on how to end the war, but also the extent to which the nations of the world are willing to hold Russia accountable for starting the conflict and for potential war crimes. A second but related issue is the ongoing global food crisis, which has been worsened by the war in Ukraine despite a recent agreement to resume grain shipments from Ukrainian ports. The UN World food program is worried food prices could continue to rise over the next five years. Third is climate change, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned that “the message to world leaders is clear: lower the temperature — now.”
EU takes aim at Hungary
The European Union and Hungary have squabbled for years over the EU’s right to impose rules and values on its members. The EU accuses PM Viktor Orbán of undermining democracy, rule of law, and the independence of courts and the media within his country for political gain. A talented and avowedly “illiberal” populist, Orbán styles himself as a defender of Hungary’s traditional values against Brussels’s elites. To force him into line, the EU has one effective tool: it can withhold large amounts of cash from a member state if it can prove that corruption in the country is leading to the theft of EU funds. On Sunday, for the first time ever, the EU used this mechanism, threatening to withhold 7.5 billion euros (about 5% of Hungary’s GDP) unless Budapest takes very specific steps to crack down on corruption. The Hungarian government, already grappling with high inflation, a weakening currency, and a coming energy crisis, has so far said all the right things about its willingness to comply. On Monday, it submitted an anti-corruption bill to parliament with the promise of more to come. But on November 19, the EU Council and the 26 other EU states will decide (by a qualified-majority vote) whether to withhold or deliver the funds.