Something terrible is happening in Iran right now. Young women in particular challenge the regime and sometimes pay a high price for it. The film producer Minu Barati and her father Mehran, who had to leave his homeland in the 1960s, about courage, death and the beginning of a revolution.
On September 16, Mahsa Amini died at the age of just 22. The Iranian moral police had previously arrested and mistreated the young woman because of her alleged “un-Islamic outfit”. Since then, people in all parts of the country have been taking to the streets against the dictatorship that has been in place since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The number of victims is increasing daily, but so is the number of those joining the protest.
Minu Barati is a film producer (“Siberia of all places”) and lives in Berlin. Iran has occupied her all her life. Together with her father Mehran Barati, who had to flee from Persia to Germany in the 1960s from the Shah regime and made a name for himself as an exile opposition figure, she talks in the FOCUS online interview about what is currently happening in Tehran and happened to many other cities. Father and daughter are obviously close. At the end of the interview, both are fighting back tears.
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FOCUS online: In the protests in Iran, it is mainly women and girls who are leading the way. What does that say about the movement?
Minu Barati: Something big is happening right before our eyes. People are taking to the streets because they have reached a point where they would rather risk their lives than continue to live under a dictatorship that has been oppressing, torturing and murdering for 40 years. This movement is led by young women, but the men are at their side. This is the beginning of a revolution.
What role does religion play in this?
Minu Barati: We see images from classrooms where teenagers are voicing their protests, although they were probably asked by their parents not to do so out of concern. The protest has nothing to do with religion, it’s not about headscarves or hijabs. There are also veiled women who have joined the protest movement. It is about how a people whose most fundamental human rights have been systematically suppressed for so long wants to live. It’s about freedom. The people want the dictatorship to go away. They don’t want a despotic theocracy, they want a secular democratic system and are willing to pay any price for it.
Even with your own life?
Minu Barati: The young adults, teenagers, but also children risk their lives. And unfortunately they also lose their lives. Hundreds have been killed in the past few weeks alone, and thousands over the past four decades. The death of Jina Mahsa Amini was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. She has become a symbol. It is important to say that Jina was Kurdish. The fire of resistance across the country was kindled by this additionally oppressed minority.
What do young people want to achieve?
Mehran Barati: What Iranian women and girls have been doing in the past three weeks is a cultural revolution. Here the cornerstones of the Islamic Republic are being shaken. The demonstrators are concerned with a fundamental change in the system of government in Iran. The central slogan at the rallies is: freedom. This goes far beyond questions of clothing.
Photos are circulating in which schoolgirls are giving a middle finger to a picture showing Ayatollah Khomeini and Khamenei. This is extraordinary.
Mehran Barati: Yes, it is. And the movement is still gaining momentum. Despite violence and arrests, the young people are not intimidated. On the contrary. There is a certain insecurity in the security apparatus. They ask themselves: are we really supposed to shoot little girls and boys?
The answer is apparently yes.
Mehran Barati: According to my information, 280 people have been killed since September 16, including children. There were also 8,000 arrests and hundreds injured.
Is the protest limited to Tehran?
Mehran Barati: Not at all. Demonstrations are now being reported from around 150 cities in all 31 provinces. It’s not always the big crowd that takes to the streets. But they employ the security forces that so many people in the area don’t even have. In addition, the gangs of thugs sometimes refuse to attack the demonstrators, to hit them. Because these are their friends, neighbors, relatives. The first signs of dissolution can be observed here. No matter how the protests end. One thing is already clear: Iran is no longer what it was for 43 years.
How nervous is the regime?
Mehran Barati: The National Security Council is responsible for security. He is the actual center of power in the country. The army and secret services are gathered here alongside the religious leader and state president. I’ve heard there are differences of opinion on how to deal with this burgeoning revolution. Some rely on a kind of attrition tactic with many arrests and professional bans, others on physical, potentially deadly violence.
What is different this time compared to the big protest movements of 2009, 2017 and 2019?
Minu Barati: This time the protests are decentralized and in many small and medium-sized groups, which is difficult to control. More and more people are joining and it doesn’t stop. All in all, what is happening is gigantic. The people will fight until they are free this time.
Mehran Barati: This time it’s mainly young people who are taking to the streets. Two thirds are between 25 and 35 years old. You could say: Now the girls and young women are fighting on behalf of the whole people who are not yet on the streets.
Why now?
Minu Barati: The girls and boys break out. This corrupt, violent state has no support among them. They lead a life that can only take place secretly underground and behind closed doors. They watch the same films and series as we do, dress like us at home, celebrate parties, listen to music, finally want freedom.
Mehran Barati: And not being constantly monitored.
What support is needed now?
Minu Barati: Protests abroad, with us, reports in the media, in social networks are so important. Because they actually give those who are now taking to the streets in Iran courage to continue and also strength. When we show them that we see them and stand by their side with our hearts. That really makes a difference. That’s what we hear from the country.
Ms. Barati, you recently drew attention to the situation in Iran in “Tribute to Bambi”. What must happen to us?
Minu Barati: European unity towards the Iranian regime is a good start. Of course, beyond showing solidarity, we want everything to be done to break the regime where possible. For example, the freezing of the billions in assets of the corrupt Iranian political elite abroad. Anyone who does not support the protests in Iran politically, continues to negotiate with mullahs and instead warns of the danger of political destabilization of the entire region if people try to free themselves from a life full of horror, stuns me.
If you had one wish, what would it be?
Minu Barati: I wish the people of Iran that they can finally live in freedom. There are around eight million people with Iranian roots worldwide, many of whom have been unable to enter the country since the 1979 revolution. The only possible ending is destruction. No moderate change and opening can take place in this system.
Mehran Barati: In the eyes of the regime, I’m an American agent, that’s how it was portrayed in the media there. Because, for example, I gave interviews in “Voice of America”.
You are close to tears.
Minu Barati: We are one of those million families who have never been able to see their loved ones again. My biggest wish is to get on a plane to Tehran with my father and visit his homeland.
Were you there?
Minu Barati: The last time in 1979. As a child. My father has been active in the opposition for as long as I have lived. For as long as I’ve been alive there’s been a glimmer of hope every few years that something’s going to change. And now, for the first time, it suddenly feels like it could actually happen.
In the USA (Tennessee) two small children were killed by pit bulls, they were their own family dogs. The mother wanted to save the children and was seriously injured. It was a death throes of minutes.
