After Jina Mahsa Amini was murdered by the morality police (ershad) on 16 September 2022, and protests spread both inside and outside of Iran, Iranians started using Twitter more than ever before. Many tweets began by explaining why people have taken to the streets to protest against Iran's authoritarian rule. On September 29, the young Iranian musician Shervin Hajipour posted a moving song on Instagram. The song, “Baraye” (meaning for/because), was inspired by tweets from Iranians following Amini’s death. The song played and continues to play an important role in the ongoing protests. Within a couple of days, Hajipour's Instagram post received more than 40 million views and spread to other social media platforms before it was removed. Hajipour was arrested by police and held for several days before being released on bail. The case received huge international attention, with the song being shared in different versions in several languages, which has without a doubt affected his parole.
Below I share some explicitly feminist reasons why women are out protesting against 43 years of a gender apartheid regime.
Baraye my sister, your sister and our sisters
Baraye 43 years of compulsory hejab
Baraye the brutal murder of Jina Amini, Hananeh Kia, Hadis Najafi, Nika Shakarami, Sarina Esmaïlzadeh, and many more, women protest today
Braye Kurdish, Turkish, Balouchi, Arab, Armenian and Bahai women
Baraye all misogynistic laws
Baraye child marriage and all young girls who became brides, mothers
Baraye all who threw stones at forbidden love
Baraye polygamy and temporary marriages
Baraye stolen dreams and long-awaited desired kisses
Baraye 43 years of the reactionary rule of men over our bodies, the women are protesting today
Baraye the 16 sex workers who were strangled to death with their headscarves in Mashad
Baraye all women and men who were not allowed to love women and men with their own bodies
Baraye all the girls who wished they were born a boy, the women are protesting today
Baraye polluted air and dried-up lakes
Baraye Afghan refugees
Baraye the shame of poverty
Baraye child labor and stolen childhoods
Baraye women’s degraded value, their testimonies in court worth half that of men’s
Baraye being deprived of half the inheritance
Baraye all women's tears, unable to divorce, unable to have custody of their own children
Baraye unpaid/low-paid labor, the women are protesting today
Baraye portraying all women as submissive, veiled housewives and mothers in our school books
Baraye banned/inaccessible professions and university fields
Baraye all sex-segregated schools, universities, workplaces
Baraye gender-separated buses and subways
Baraye all the girls who were barred from running, biking, swimming, climbing
Baraye all the women who pushed boundaries: who cycled, swam, climbed and ran
Baraye all the young women who cut their hair and dressed like boys to be able to go to a football stadium, the women are protesting today
Baraye being forced to wear a veil during the warm and polluted summer days of Tehran
Baraye the crime of letting the wind blow your hair
Baraye colored nails, sunglasses, and red lips
Baraye singing, dancing, and listening to music
Baraye having the right to stay overnight in hotels and travel abroad without the permission of a male guardian
Baraye all hateful sexist remarks on governmental media, streets, workplaces, schools and universities
Baraye being called sabok (easy lay), jelf (loose woman) and harzeh (slut)
Baraye the persistent sense of shame from strict parents and their violent control
Baraye supportive parents' watchful eyes and endless care
Baraye controlling brothers’ embarrassment and their endless punishments
Baraye judgmental eyes and gossiping mouths of family, neighbors, and friends
Baraye supportive brothers called bi-gheyrat (unmanly, without honor) who protest with women today
Baraye all political prisoners
Baraye the unceasing death penalty
Baraye children born in prison
Baraye Nasrin Sotoudeh, Narges Mohammadi, Shiva Nazar Ahari, Sepideh Gholian, Mahvash Sabet
Baraye female political prisoners who were raped prior to their execution
Baraye the mothers of Khavaran cemetery and their children who were executed and buried in secrecy
Baraye coexistence of beauty and pain in Parastou Forouhar’s art portraying stabbed bodies of her parents, women protest today
Baraye forbidden March 8ths*
Baraye the first Iranian feminist, Tahirih Qorratol'Ayn
Baraye involuntary exile of Shirin Ebadi, Mehrangiz Kar and Parvin Ardalan
Baraye brave Fatemeh Sepehri, who in her black chador defended the right of women to decide not to wear a veil and was recently arrested
Baraye Zahra Sedighi-Hamedani and Elham Chubdar, Kurdish queer activists sentenced to death, women protest today
Baraye the girls and women who had enough and killed themselves
Baraye Homa Darabi who on February 21, 1994 took off her headscarf, poured gasoline over herself, and burned to death
Baraye violence against women and all the traceless disappeared women
Baraye woman's forbidden voice, for Googoosh's forbidden voice
Baraye Forough Farrokhzad's censored poems
Baraye Jila Khajenouri, the last woman to appear on Iranian television without a veil after the 1979 revolution, the women are protesting today.
Baraye all Iranian female actors, forced to sleep with a headscarf and not allowed to hug/touch their sons, brothers, husbands in their films
Baraye all the women who raised their voices during Iran's #metoo and faced downpours of insults
Baraye Zar Amir Ebrahimi's leaked private video and her forced exile
Baraye the lump in her throat and Ebrahimi's tears when she received the award for best actor at the Cannes Film Festival, women protest today
Baraye those traces of the veil in my body, my language, my soul
Baraye all my mixed, painful feelings when I defend the right to wear the veil in the Islamophobia in the societies of the West
Baraye the diaries of the younger me who had to burn them all before I left Iran
Baraye forced migration, the loss landscape of exile
Baraye refused visas
Baraye migration's linguistic vulnerability, accumulated agony
Baraye my sister's child in Iran whom I have not seen
Baraye my mother's death anxiety for not having the chance to see her exiled children and grandchildren again
Baraye my sister, your sister, our sisters
Baraye Woman, Life, Freedom
*Celebrations of March 8th, International Women’s Day, are banned in Iran.