A strong image has been making the rounds on social networks since November 2, that of a young girl defying the Islamic regime. Harassed about her outfit, Ahou Daryaei decides to strip and camp in her underwear in the middle of the university. Through his powerful gesture, the fed-up of an entire generation, faced with ever-increasing restrictions, is expressed. The video of her gesture has been circulating for two days on social networks, broadcast in particular by Amnesty Iran, without knowing what happened to her after being beaten and taken away by the authorities.
That this scene takes place today in a university is not insignificant. In the fall of 2022, after the death of the young Mahsa Amini, many universities rose up, sit-ins and boycotts were organized there. These places are also the first targeted when new laws impose ever greater clothing restrictions. However, this particular university – a branch of the Islamic Azad University, devoted to “science and research” – a private establishment far from the center of the city, is not one of the most rebellious areas. Yet there was a young girl there who today embodies the essence of rebellion.
This is not the first incident of this type at a higher education institution. At another university in Tehran, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was heckled by students during a speech on October 12. In June, five student organizations denounced the electoral charade through an open letter distributed via social networks in Iran and taken up by the website of Iranians in exile Iran Wire. “There are no democratic elections in the Islamic Republic, these elections are only a mask for the dictatorial nature of the regime,” affirmed the students, a few days before the election of Masoud Pezeshkian.
An Islamization of education
Paradox of the regime, the Islamic Republic had the effect of putting many young girls from traditionalist and religious families on the path to school, their parents being reassured by the Islamization of education. In Iran, 60% of higher education graduates are women. But they are also targets. In the spring of 2023, hundreds of young Iranian girls were poisoned by gas in their schools. During the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, young high school girls increased their gestures of civil disobedience, triggering intense repression against them.
Iranian sociologist Azadeh Kian discusses the Talibanization of the Islamic regime, affirming that today religious people do not look favorably on these lengthy studies, which raise the age of marriage among young women. In Reading dangerously: the subversive power of literature in troubled times (Ed Zulma, September 2024), the Iranian writer exiled in the United States Azar Nafisi writes about Iranian women: “Iranian women, however, practice a type of resistance, which is not ‘political’ in the strict sense. […] These sufferings gave birth to a form of resistance that transcends purely political struggle. A resistance that has become personal.” Each Iranian woman carries within herself the suffering of the collective, of women imprisoned, tortured, raped, killed for having claimed their freedom.
The author, also known for her worldwide bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran (republished by Ed. Zulma, 2024), had to resign from his position as professor of literature at the University of Tehran in 1981 for refusing to wear the veil. Universities were one of the important sites of the regime’s desire for Islamization of society, at the center of a “cultural revolution” which led to the eviction of thousands of students and professors for ideological reasons. But despite all these efforts, students have been involved in all the major protests since 1999 – a very large-scale movement which paralyzed the capital and major cities for several days – until “Woman, Life, Liberty” .