Mahsa Amini
Mahsa Amini was 22 years old when she was killed in Iran while in police custody this past September. She was arrested for wearing her hijab incorrectly and was severely beaten. Police claim that she died from previous health conditions; her family disagrees, saying that she was in good health.
Her death sparked protests around the world, including one on OU’s campus. I watched it take place as I walked to class one day, with many international students and people from Iranian heritage coming together to protest the Iranian “regime’s treatment of women,” according to Forbes. Women have been taking off their hijabs in protest as well as cutting their hair. She has been named in Forbes’s World’s 100 Most Powerful Women because even after her death, she has inspired millions around the world.
Many of these protests have been taking place in Iran, and at least 300 people have been killed by the Iranian police in these protests (with many estimates being closer to 500). Forbes says that one of the reasons her death has inspired so many protests is because she was just an ordinary 22-year-old — she’s the same age as a college senior, and she wasn’t an activist. She was just a girl, who happened to be wearing her hijab not in accordance with Iranian standards. So many people know someone just like her, and so when she was killed, her death hit home for so many.
Her death is tragic and was not necessary, and it has brought people around the world together to fight for women’s rights, not just in Iran. It is interesting to see how one girl has been able to affect the world without even meaning to, and I am in awe of the bravery of the people who are protesting in Iran or other countries with discrimination laws and countries who have unfair treatment of women. These people are literally putting their lives on the line to stand up for what they believe is right, and I think that that is a lesson that we can all take with us.
There is consistently so much injustice in the world, and we have seen how people have fought against that in the United States. One of the more recent examples is all of the Black Lives Matter protests after George Floyd’s death — another tragic and unnecessary death that sparked the movement of thousands. However, most of the BLM protests in this occurrence were specifically protesting the United States police’s treatment; Mahsa Amini has taken that to another level.
Her death has brought about global connectivity in a way that is promoting such change throughout the world. The New York Times says that she has sparked the largest Iranian protests since at least 2009. Mahsa Amini was an ordinary girl, and yet she has changed the world.
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