What happened to Mahsa Amini in Iran could’ve happened to me: Elnaaz Norouzi
30/09/2022
Over the last week, there have been widespread protests in Iran and across the world after a 22-yearold Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, died in the custody of the country’s morality police. She was detained for not wearing her hijab properly.
News reports suggest that so far, over 40 people have died in the protests in Iran. The women of Iran have found supporters across the world, as politicians, international organisations and celebrities have spoken up about it. Protests have also been organised in the US, France, Canada, Turkey, Spain and the UK. Among those sharing videos of protests and urging people to speak up against barbaric laws is Iranian Bollywood actress Elnaaz Norouzi.
Along with one of the videos, she wrote, “My Indian friends and followers - I request you all to spread the news and help Iran fight this battle which has been going on for 43 years. Pls create awareness, they are killing people every day on the roads and have blocked the internet and all ways of communication so their voices can’t be heard.” Elnaaz’s family is in Iran and she tells us that she spoke to them a few days ago and as the internet services in the country are disrupted, it is difficult to get in touch with her family. “They have cut the internet so that people cannot get in touch with the world and show what’s happening in Iran. This is dictatorship,” says the actress.
‘After so many years of oppression, Iranian women are tired of it’
Elnaaz says that while it is “heart-wrenching to see how people are being killed and beaten on roads,” these protests were bound to happen. She says, “We are saying that we want to be free to do what we want to do as women. We just need the world to hear, see what is happening, because they are killing our people. What happened to Mahsa Amini is just barbaric. After so many years of oppression, women are tired of it. The young women (of Iran) now don’t just sit at home and listen anymore. Even the men are out on the road protesting. It is not about hijab anymore, it is about what they have done to our country, the sanctions in our country. The people are poor, they have no money to eat.”
A screengrab from the video that Elnaaz Norouzi posted on her social media handle with the hashtag #MahsaAmini, the 22-year-old woman in Iran who died after being arrested by Iran’s morality police
‘I have been caught by the morality police myself. It is scary’
In one of the first videos she shared about Iran protests, Elnaaz spoke about her close brush with the morality police in Tehran. She said, “What happened to Mahsa could have happened to Elnaaz. A few years back I was in Iran and it was my last day in Tehran. I was out on the road with my cousin when a woman suddenly came in front of me, and she just asked me ‘what is this?’. I really didn’t know what she was talking about and she repeated ‘what is this?’. I was then taken by the morality police, Gasht-e Ershad, because my pants (pant legs) weren’t wide enough. They were tight, so you could see my ankle.”
Elnaaz continues, “Even though my manto, which is that thing you have to wear to cover your bum and cover everything, was long enough to cover my ankle, my pants were not wide. I was taken in a van to the ‘re-education center’, where they took Mahsa as well, until someone came and picked me up with the right clothing. Now my cousin was freaking out, my family was freaking out. When I reached there, they took my passport and they took my phone… The way they scare you, the things they do with you, this is not the way anyone should live in Iran. They take you for the weirdest reasons… your nail colour, your hijab, your clothing, anything. I don’t want any woman to live like this, no woman deserves this.
This small story was just so you understand that what happened to Mahsa could have happened to me and it can happen to any woman in Iran.” Sharing more about her experience, Elnaaz tells us, “It is scary, they take your pictures like you are in prison, they take your number, your details. You never know what they can come for. And sometimes, these girls and women who are taken away might never come back and we just want this to stop. The last video I posted on Instagram shows how the police rammed a woman’s head on the road, she might just get internal bleeding and die, just the way Mahsa died. She got internal bleeding because they hit her head. They keep lying and tampering with evidence and saying she had a heart attack.”
‘It’s not about women’s rights anymore, it’s about human rights’
In her video, Elnaaz also spoke about Iranians needing help. “We need the world to see what these oppressors are doing with our women, with our people and we are just fed up with them and we don’t want them anymore. We don’t want another Mahsa. We don’t want the Islamic Republic of Iran, we just want Iran back.” Elnaaz tells us that it is high time that the world leaders take note and do something about what’s happening in Iran. “It is not just about women’s rights anymore; it is about human rights.
This is a scary situation; we need the entire world to hear. We want the world leaders to do something about what’s happening in Iran and that’s why we are trying to talk about this more. We need everyone to spread the word,” she says.
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