Following the murder of Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022, a wave of protests broke out in Iran and around the world. Nearly 7,000 miles from Tehran, Persian students at Yale have joined millions across the globe in offering support to the protestors and grieving for those lives lost.
Amini was a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was detained by Iran’s morality police for wearing her hijab looser than required by law while visiting family members in Tehran. According to a 1981 mandatory hijab law that was put into effect after the Iranian Revolution, women are legally required to wear a hijab in public. Three days after her arrest, Amini died in Tehran’s Kasra Hospital. The Iranian government states that Amini died of a heart attack at the detention center, but her family attests that witnesses saw her being beaten by morality police officers.
The recent wave of protests and civil unrest sparked by Amini’s death adds to a long legacy of cycles of activism and violence in Iranian history. During the 1979 Iranian Revolution, also known as the Islamic Revolution, thousands of Iranians took to the streets to express their discontent with Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s authoritarian rule. The protests were ultimately successful — resulting in the establishment of the present-day Republic of Iran. However, nearly 3,000 Iranians died, and many more were detained during the protests. In 2017, protests began again in Iran’s second-largest city, Mashhad. Thousands protested against the country’s economic policies, which had resulted in higher prices of public goods, in what came to be known as the 2017-2018 economic protests.
In the five months since Amini’s murder, Iranians have once again launched a massive wave of protests. And like other movements before, it has been costly — more than 500 Iranians have lost their lives as the revolution continues.
This revolution has spread into a global movement. Many Americans — whether or not they have roots in Iran — were dressed in green, red, and white, the colors of the Iranian flag, at solidarity rallies. In Washington, D.C., protestors chanted, “Be scared. Be scared. We are one in this, Say her name! Mahsa!” as they marched to the White House.
At Yale, joining in these protests has been an opportunity for Persian students to come together. Kahveh Zahiroleslam ’24, the President of the Yale Persian Students Association, reflected on the work he and other members of the group have done ever since the waves of protests over Amini’s death started. The community, once small and loosely connected, has expanded rapidly and come together as a result of these events.
Zahiroleslam told The Politic that it is the responsibility of those abroad, including the association that he leads, to band together in support of the Iranian people. “The people are not a representation of their government [so we are] showing compassion towards their efforts to change something that’s been there for over four decades almost.”
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Zahiroleslam is a first-generation Iranian American student. Although he grew up in the United States, his first language is Farsi, and his parents have made a significant effort to teach him Iranian history. He hopes to bring these experiences to his role at the Persian Students Association and create a space on Yale’s campus to bring Persian students together and celebrate Iranian culture.
Nader Granmayeh ’24 feels similarly. “There’s always a desire to create community and connect with people who have a similar background and heritage to you.” Granmayeh’s parents, similar to Zahiroleslam’s parents, grew up in Iran. Granmayeh’s household speaks Farsi, and he has been to Iran several times to visit his extended family.
The Persian Students Association hosts a number of cultural events and fundraisers throughout the year, one of which included a vigil for Mahsa Amini on Cross Campus in October of 2022. Granmayeh and Zahiroleslam both helped to organize the event.
Granmayeh recalled that the event was “a space for people to grieve and allow themselves to feel a little bit. And I think that, from our perspective, we certainly felt the heaviness of the moment. But on the flip side, it did feel really good to get something organized and create a space on campus where people could feel represented and supported. And even on top of that a space where Iranians can be connected to one another.”
Nearly 50 community members attended the event, including Sarah Kashaf, an Associate Professor at the Yale School of Medicine. Kashaf is Iranian American and lived in Iran for several years as a child. For many years, she engaged in Iranian culture only through interactions with her parents and family but became more proud of her identity as an Iranian after these protests started.
“I think that’s what was remarkable about this movement is that many people who were just really integrated into the larger American fabric became more connected to their Iranian roots. I’ll definitely include myself in that group — and with pride. Here’s my beautiful culture that I should be protecting, and here are these brave people who are fighting,” said Kashaf.
However, when news of the protests first flooded social media, Kashaf recalled feeling sadness and anger. “Why are these lives not precious to the international community? Why is this not getting recognition?” This inspired her and her fellow colleagues at the Yale School of Medicine to form a support group for those who wanted a space to talk about and reflect on the ongoing events in Iran.
Laya Jalilian-Khave, a postdoctoral associate at the Yale department of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine, joined Kashaf’s support group. During her final moments in Iran, before she left in September 2022 to come study in the United States, Jalilian-Khave remembers feeling guilty. “My friends wanted to migrate and they couldn’t.” It was these sentiments that led her to realize the importance of speaking up for Iranians back home when the protests started.
Asghar Rastegar, Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Founding Director of the Office of Global Health at the Yale School of Medicine, who was another member of this support group, felt a similar urgency to speak up. Kashaf left Iran in 1985, only a few years after the Iranian Revolution. Like many others, he was detained during the Revolution but was able to come to the United States to teach at Yale. He experienced the oppression of the Iranian government first-hand and still carries these feelings of discontent and anger.
As part of her advocacy efforts, Kashaf co-authored a faculty letter with professor Travis Zadeh that asked Yale to officially denounce the violence happening in Iran. In response, President Salovey issued a statement of solidarity in support of the Iranian protests. Yale was the first school in the Ivy League to issue such a statement and other schools, including Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles have since followed suit.
Kashaf also highlighted the importance of Jalilian-Khave’s creative writing skills, which she uses as a framework for her and her colleagues’ activism. Within this structure, she creates different roles in social activism, like the storyteller, a role that the group has adopted and uses as a guide to plan events.
Kashaf and Jalilian-Khave have been at the forefront of organizing several events within the Yale community to tell the stories of Iranian people. For example, the group held a storytelling event at the beginning of November at the Anlyan Center auditorium. Many members of the School of Medicine, including Kashaf, gave speeches, performed poetry, and showcased photographs. More importantly, this event brought to light stories of torture and oppression, an experience unfortunately faced by many Iranians under the regime.
In addition to the solidarity event, Kashaf also organized another event focused on bringing to light the executions that have taken place under the current regime. She helped plan an event that discussed executions in Iran by telling the story of Hassan Liu, a 53-year-old radiologist who was sentenced to death for attending a protest. Kashaf is currently working to organize another event this coming April to continue to tell stories that demonstrate the regime’s violence but also speak to the bravery of the Iranian people.
In light of this long history of violence, why was Amini’s murder the spark for these protests? Philip Mousavizadeh ’24 explained that “these protests are both organic and very deeply felt across the country as most people have grown up only knowing oppression and are trying to throw it off in whatever way possible.”
Iranian Americans at Yale are standing alongside protestors on the ground by sharing the stories of violence and bravery — that are embedded into the Iranian identity — with the world. Telling these stories has helped strengthen the Iranian community at Yale, and many hope that this community will continue to grow.
Granmayeh stated, “we’re now connected in a way that we hadn’t been before. And I think that’s something that will hopefully be sustained moving forward. And I think that is part of the reason that this has been such a meaningful couple of months. When I first got to Yale, it didn’t seem like there was much of a community, or at least an established one. And, you know, now it really does feel like we built something sustainable.”
Kashaf similarly emphasized that “maintaining these personal connections is important. Maintaining our mission is important. Supporting each other is important and being able to use our little network to do something bigger than us is important.”
Given that many in Iran may not be able to use their voices due to the danger that they could put themselves and their families in, it is crucial that Iranians abroad — and everyone — continue to stand in solidarity with the protestors, and speak up for them when they cannot.
Kashaf explained, “there are people that are begging and saying, can you please be our voice? There is an impact on us for speaking out.” For Jalilian-Khave, speaking out means she cannot go home and see her family and friends. If someone speaks for her and amplifies her voice, it puts her in a safer position.
Aside from this, non-Iranians must continue to pay attention to the revolution that is unfolding in Iran and make an effort to attend events, such as those hosted by the Persian Students Association here at Yale, that bring Iranian perspectives and voices to the forefront.
As we near the 6 month anniversary of Amini’s death, protests continue to unfold. Kashaf explained that although the tensions in Iran had been long brewing before Amini’s murder, the event was fuel to a fire. It caused building political strain to burst and ripple across the country. Right now, he said, “the water is close to boiling again.”
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Seams
By Leila Ruser (Kashaf’s daughter)
Her country said goodbye in the form of a gutted stuffed animal on the airport conveyor belt.
There are bits of it sewn into the Persian rugs and tacked onto the walls here
Bits of it float in her voice when she talks on the phone:
“Salaam, Azizam” and 6,041 miles of uncuttable string.
When she gives birth, bits of it will shape the eyes of her daughters and blacken their hair
It will stain their fingertips red with crushed pomegranate seeds and split them down the middle
Afloat in snowy suburbia.
Jagged pieces of it will fall out of her mouth when she tells the story of Parisa
Arrested for mascara and nail polish
Or of her pregnant cousin, murdered by the regime at 21.
6,041 miles of uncuttable string and 37 years
Are not enough to sew the stuffing back in.