Social media channels are now filled with videos of young Iranians pulling the turbans off the heads of mullahs, or clerics.
It is obvious that the trick is planned: the action of the headdress pusher is filmed from a distance, the pusher runs away – and the video is published on social media.
Tags such as #turbannocking and #turbantossing are attached to the videos, which loosely translated into Finnish means turban tossing.
– The turban campaign is the best I’ve seen!
This is what the man interviewed by says, Reza, according to which the mullahs have even started to avoid going out or cover up their traditional clothes.
The names of Reza and the other interviewees in the story have been changed. does not share detailed information about any of the interviewees, so that they do not become the target of violence by the Iranian regime.
Another Iranian youth also tells that you can really see turbaned people on the streets.
– I wouldn’t want to be boring and interfere with people’s dressing. But these religious scholars have been violating our rights for so long that it is frankly satisfying to see them themselves being harassed, says the Tehranian Mariam.
interviewed several participants in the protests remotely. They say that they are ready to continue the rebellion despite the violence and the difficulty of everyday life.
Information about the situation in the country is very difficult to obtain due to strict censorship and the ban on entry of foreign journalists.
“It’s not unusual to see girls without a scarf in a cafe”
Young people say that more and more women dare to move in public without the mandatory hijab. The Iranian leadership has explained the headscarf requirement by saying that it is based on Islamic law.
The headscarf is worn despite the fact that the moral police, the National Guard and other security forces threaten those who defy the rules with violence.
– For example, in cafes you see more and more girls without a scarf. There are situations where no one has the guts to point it out to them. It was different just over two months ago, says Reza.
The same amount of time has passed since the death of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amin. She died after being beaten by the morality police on the charge of wearing a scarf inappropriately.
Amin’s death started a series of protests that spread to different parts of Iran and also abroad. Women have, for example, cut their hair in public, also in Helsinki.
Reza also talks about another new phenomenon, small shows of support for young women walking around without a headscarf.
– It’s great to see how people slip candies to girls who reveal their hair to encourage them, says Reza.
Some give girls notes that say: Your beautiful hair makes our city more beautiful.
Demonstrations continue across Iran.
At the moment, the situation is worst in the Kurdish regions of Iran, where there is a direct war against the opponents of the regime.
Iran Human Rights organization (you will go to another service) according to 25.11. by now, at least 416 people have died in the clashes, 51 of them children. Members of the security forces have also been killed.
“Companies even sell data to the moral police”
Reza is a man in his late thirties, who works in a digital marketing company.
According to him, the administration’s decision to block the operation of the network and forbid the use of Instagram, for example, makes working very difficult.
– Digital marketing is handled through social media, such as Instagram. When it is denied, work becomes impossible, he says.
According to Reza, people have also been fired from their jobs because they have participated in demonstrations or strikes supporting protests.
According to Reza, some Iranian workplaces cooperate so far with the Iranian regime that they sell information about those who participated in the protests to the morality police.
– Company managers even open their doors to the police so that people can be arrested right at their desks, he says.
has not been able to verify the claim that the information was passed on to the moral police, but it is believable that the administration has an interest in accessing such information.
“Policemen threatening me with a gun come to my dreams”
The interviewees say that they run into armed forces on the street from behind the wheel.
Reza was interviewed in mid-November, when it was the commemoration day of the massacre in 2019. At that time, there was a protest because of the gasoline price increases. At least 300 people were killed in the attacks by the security forces in a few days.
On Memorial Day, Reza was at work in his office and heard car horns from the street all day. It is one form of protest.
When leaving his workplace, Reza saw two policemen shooting people with rubber bullets.
– The police have also pointed a gun at me. The image and voice of that policeman come to my dreams as nightmares, he says.
Even honking car horns is not a safe way to show your opinion, as the police collect license plates, break windows and can even shoot people in cars.
One of the latest victims is 10-year-old Kian Pirfalak, who died just over a week ago in the southwestern city of Izeh.
According to the sources of the public broadcasting company BBC, he was sitting with his father in the car when the security forces on motorcycles opened fire on the car. The Iranian leadership denies the information and says that the shooters were “terrorists”.
Small signs give hope for change
Atena is 28 years old a working woman from Tehran.
There have been several waves of protests in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
According to Atena, it used to be easier to suppress protests, but now ordinary citizens can even prevent arrests.
Atena describes a situation she saw recently, where plainclothes moral police followed a woman because she was not wearing a scarf.
– When the plainclothes police tried to arrest the woman, the people around prevented it. Now we have hope, he says.
Atena says that she noticed a change in people’s attitudes. He says that after Mahsa Amin’s death, at first people were only outraged by what happened, but did not talk about freedom.
– Then everyone realized that that’s what it’s all about – freedom, he says.
In the past, people felt guilty when the moral police came to lecture them, Atena describes.
– Now the feeling of guilt is gone. People won’t give up anymore, he believes.
Could the machinery of violence bend to negotiations?
The Tehranians interviewed by call the ongoing protest movement a revolution.
Experienced Iran expert, journalist Liisa Liimatainen, says that the very last few days have seen the first signs that the line of discipline of the Iranian leadership might be cracking. Even the top management may think that the use of violence has gone too far.
– On the Amwaj website of Middle East researchers, it has been reported that the Iranian leadership would probe the former president Mohammad Khatami appointment as a negotiator between the administration and the protesters, Liimatainen says.
Naming Khatami would be a big deal, as a religious leader Ali Khamenei has until now mostly despised Khatami, who was once considered reformist.
In any case, the intransigence of the people’s movement seems to have surprised the Iranian leadership.
Liimatainen still doesn’t start predicting a revolution just yet. According to him, information about possible negotiations may indicate that the leadership of the Islamic Republic understands that something needs to be done, but is not about to give up on the Islamic Republic.
– The protesters, on the other hand, want to abolish the entire system. Hopefully there will be brokerage companies that would be of some help, says Liimatainen.
Young people want freedoms that are commonplace in Western countries
The demonstrations that started as opposition to the headscarf requirement have expanded into general demands for freedom, and men are increasingly joining them as well.
Reza says that even though he is a man, he fully supports the protests.
– I want to kiss my girlfriend on the street. I want to hold her hand. I want to go to the beach with him. I want to be free, and I want him to be free.
also got in touch To 30-year-old Parisa of the opposite sexwho tells about his wishes in a short message.
Parisa says her life is now filled with the ongoing uprising.
– I am constantly afraid that I myself or one of my friends will be arrested or die.
Parisa participates in demonstrations together with her parents. He says he tried to move to Canada, even though he wants to live in his own country.
– I can’t live if we don’t get rid of this system. I want foreign countries to tell about what is happening in Iran, he says.
Corrected on 26.11. at 9:49 an armored vehicle caption. It is apparently a police vehicle, not an army vehicle.
Do you follow the situation in Iran closely yourself? You can discuss the topic until Sunday, November 27 at 11 p.m.
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Listen to the “What is the world talking about” podcast, which reflects on the difficulty of reporting on Iran.
How does Iran’s surveillance apparatus work even abroad? Read more here.
Watch Sweden’s TV’s Evening for Iran in Areena, featuring artists from Sweden’s Iranian community.