Hear Iranian women’s cry
By Faramarz Fatideh
In the free world, the holidays are a festive period for friends and families to gather.
During that period, the media had minimal coverage and was busy covering quarrels in the United States and the war in Ukraine.
What about the women and girls in Iran who jeopardize their lives for a chance to be heard? For a chance to taste freedom?
On Dec. 27, Mohammad Moradi, a 38-year-old student in Lyon, France, purposely drowned in the Rhone river to bring the media’s attention to the atrocities in Iran. The holidays do not exist for those living under Iranian tyranny. There is no pause or cease-fire from the horrors of oppression. Anyone who values freedom, liberty, justice, and democratic values should pay close attention, hear the roars, and support the movement.
Iranians have been rioting since the brutal murder of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish girl. The state’s TV called it a natural death, but the medical files revealed that her skull was fractured and broken. The morality police brutally beat her because of her clothes. Dictatorial regimes, like the one in Iran, must be stopped from spreading lies. Misinformation doesn’t have any borders.
This spark ignited 43 years of suppressed rage. The population is seeking the democracy they demanded during the 1979 revolution. Women, Life, Freedom has a simple message: there is no freedom in Iran without the liberation of women, and, in globally connected countries, there is no free world while [an oppressive] regime is tolerated when they brutally kill their own population on the streets and execute youth with no just cause.
This movement grew beyond a protest against the morality police, and for Iranians to succeed, they need allies from the free world. We need support to push the self-proclaimed spiritual “leader of the Muslim world” out of Iran.
Every day the world adopts new sanctions against Iranian entities and individuals for serious human rights violations. International sanctions have been applied against the Iranian government, individuals and entities. Canada and some European countries also cut all political relations and partnerships with Iran.
As an individual who has been exposed several times to Morality Police brutality, I know firsthand what they are capable of. The Canadian government can and should do more to influence other governments to stop their diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Canada needs to officially recognize IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] as a terrorist group. There must be consequences for regimes that brutally torture and kill children in the name of God.
Hear Iranian women’s cry for freedom and help them reach freedom, dignity and justice.
Faramarz Fatideh is a resident of Iran and the sister of Chelsea resident Farrah Fatideh