English: On Sunday 16 September 2023 Iranian democracy activists and their supporters held a protest in London's Trafalgar Square in solidarity with Iranian women and workers struggling against an authoritarian theocracy. The demonstration was to mark exactly one year since the death of 22 year old Mahsa Amini, just three days after her arrest by Iranian police for wearing her hijab 'improperly,' The evidence suggests that she was beaten into a coma following a skull fracture to her head, although the Iranian government insists she died from a heart attack.

Iranian women reacted by burning their hijabs, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets while workers staged sit-in strikes and many shops closed down. The Iranian government responded with arrests, executions and by restricting internet access and shutting down some social media platforms. According to the BBC, by April 2023, nearly 20,000 people had been arrested and 500 killed, citing the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).

Iranian activists also claim that many hundreds and possibly over a thousand protesters have been deliberately shot in their eyes, with Iranian security forces allegedly using the same strategy used by at least one officer within Egypt's security forces in November 2011 of deliberately targeting protesters' eyes. An estimated 500 protesters with eye injuries sought treatment at hospitals in Tehran during the autumn of 2022, while many others may have deliberately avoided visiting such hospitals for fear of arrest.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-64503873

Although the demonstrators at Trafalgar Square were united in their condemnation of the Iranian theocracy, they didn't all share the same vision for a future Iran. Some, judging by their placards, seemed to want a return to a monarchical regime and some even held up images of the former Shah - Mohamed Reza Pahlavi - overthrown in the revolution of 1979, but much of whose rule was also marked by appalling human rights abuses and shocking economic inequality. Like the current regime, the Shah relied on his secret police, torture and executions to crush dissent.

Other demonstrators held up photos of the Shah's eldest son, Reza Pahlavi. However others carried placards calling for a popular democratic government and others placards calling for a people's revolution. Perhaps the most commonly seen placards were those with the slogan 'Women, Life, Freedom' written in English, Farsi and also occasionally in Arabic too, and here I think everyone was united in their condemnation of the current regime's oppression of women.

Human Rights Watch notes that 'Iranian women experience discrimination in law and in practice in ways that deeply impact their lives, particularly with regard to marriage, divorce and custody issues,' and adds that 'Post-1979 compulsory hijab laws affect virtually every aspect of women's public life in Iran.'

www.hrw.org/news/2023/06/26/unveiling-resistance-struggle...