Women of Iran: TIME Heroes of the Year 2022

Dec 7, 2022 | Younger women are now in the streets. The movement they’re leading is educated, liberal, secular, raised on higher expectations, and desperate for normality: college and foreign travel, decent jobs, rule of law, access to the Apple Store, a meaningful role in politics, the freedom to say and wear whatever. They are quite unlike those who came before them; sometimes they feel more like transnational Gen Z than Iranians: they are vegans, they de-Islamicize their names, they don’t want children. I’ve often wondered what has made them so rebellious, because their ferocious character was evident well before 22-year-old Mahsa (Jina) Amini, arrested at a metro station by the morality police who enforce the dress code, died after being held in their custody on Sept. 16, setting off the most sustained uprising in the 43-year history of the Islamic Republic. The average age of arrested protesters is notably low—Iranian officials estimate as young as 15. I can only conclude that when a generation’s aspirations for freedom appear tantalizingly within reach, the more humiliating the remaining restrictions seem, and the less daunting the final stretch of resistance feels.

Iran Hands Down Death Sentences to Protesters as Nationwide Solidarity Strike Continues | DW News

Dec 7, 2022 | Officials in Iran have handed down the death sentence to five people charged with the killing of a member of the security forces. It's the latest in a series of harsh sentences for anti-government protesters. Meanwhile, shopkeepers and truck drivers have announced a nationwide strike in solidarity with the protest movement.

DW spoke with Gissou Nia of the Strategic Litigation Project at the global affairs think tank the Atlantic Council, and Iranian-German filmmaker and activist Siba Shakib about the protesters' reaction.