One year ago, Mahsa Amini was a 22-year-old Iranian woman of Kurdish heritage visiting Tehran with her family. In the weeks before her visit, the nation’s president – Ebrahim Raisi – had ordered a crackdown to more rigorously enforce mandatory hijab laws. Amini was arrested in Tehran for the supposed crime of improper hijab. During the arrest, reports indicate she was brutally beaten in a police van before collapsing into a coma and eventually dying.
The killing of Amini was shocking and led to more brutality as Iranian security forces repressed protests that erupted across the nation. More than five hundred protesters, including 70 children, were killed, thousands were arrested and at least seven men have been executed as the Judiciary rushed through sham trials despite documentation of torture and forced confessions.
Iran is a nation that often defies simple and binary explanations and satisfactory conclusions. One year later, the uprising sparked by the morality police’s killing of Amini has evolved, rather than ended.
The “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement lives on in the continuing confrontation between state and society over the policing of women’s bodies and dress. While the mass demonstrations have ebbed, Iranians have found subtler ways to pursue greater freedom even as the state is escalating efforts to re-establish compliance with the mandatory hijab.
Arguably the movement’s most enduring gain is that many more women have regularly defied the hijab laws in public places. For several months, the morality police were also pulled back from their routine confrontations with women. New threats to reinforce the ban seem unlikely to work. As former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami recently warned, the government’s violent crackdown has only widened the rifts in Iranian society. Esmail Kowsari, a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a member of parliament also revealed, “Last year, the media turned against us, and many people, including Members of Parliament, were scared and believed that the system was over.”
Many of the country’s leading human rights defenders and dissidents have called for radical transformation, symbolized most prominently by calls to transition from the Islamic Republic. Mir Hossein Mousavi, leader of the 2009 Green Movement and under house arrest since 2011, called for a referendum on the Islamic Republic’s existence, which would pave the way for a constitutional convention and democratization. This call was endorsed by many prominent figures, including Mostafa Tajzadeh, Saeed Madani, Faezeh Hashemi, and Mustafa Nili.
Yet the state has not seeded ground willingly. The journalists who reported on Mahsa Amini’s killing and funeral – Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi – are bravely defying the Iranian government’s efforts to intimidate and silence them in court. Prominent individuals – including actors and athletes – who have defied the hijab laws on social media posts have also faced arrest and harsh reprisals. While amnesty freed many of those initially arrested, prominent advocates for democracy and freedom remain incarcerated or have charges hanging over their heads. In parliament, lawmakers are steadily advancing a new “Chastity and Hijab” law that would impose new punishments on those who continue to defy mandatory veiling. In the lead-up to the anniversary of Amini’s killing, authorities have also cracked down preemptively, arresting professors and family members of those killed in the protests.
As monumental as the movement often felt, it is undeniable that many of the dynamics that preceded the uprising are still in place today.
The Islamic Republic and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei remain in charge. The state’s monopoly on violence remains unchallenged, and the protest movement – while extensive – remains leaderless. Both U.S. and Israeli intelligence reported that the protests posed no short-term threat to the Islamic Republic’s rule.
Likewise, the reformist movement within Iran is still exiled from the power structure. There is little indication that the old reformist champions can rally the people again in favor of pursuing change through the ballot box. The economic situation also remains bleak, with inflation reaching record highs and little hope for relief as sanctions, corruption, and mismanagement continue to pummel the economy. Efforts to claim the mantle of democratic change from outside the country have also led nowhere, with many of those jockeying for position only proving adept at arguing amongst themselves.
One thing that has changed is U.S. policy toward Iran. In some cases, the new focus was warranted and has led to some incremental benefits. The Joe Biden administration’s issuance of General License D-2 — already in the works before the protests and long called for by human rights advocates — made it easier for certain tech companies to continue operating in Iran or to expand the availability of encryption tools. However, Iran’s government has had a significant head start in developing its infrastructure of online repression, and far too few U.S. companies have moved to take full advantage of the more favorable licensing. The Biden administration needs to find out why companies aren’t taking full advantage. Is it because the scope of the licensing is too limited, the government’s outreach has not been convincing, or the U.S. sanctions regime remains too complex to navigate?
The U.S. has also targeted Iranian rights abusers. Steps include sanctioning the morality police and a variety of officials involved in the crackdown and supporting a fact-finding mission at the United Nations and Iran’s removal from the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
However, these efforts coincided with the failure of attempts to restore the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which offered the prospect of relief from broad sanctions. Prior to the outbreak of protests, the U.S. had been pursuing – with varying degrees of intensity – a restoration of the pact, but that is no longer the case. Meanwhile, Iran has deepened its military cooperation with Russia following the illegal invasion of Ukraine, further alienating Americans and Europeans.
The apparent collapse of nuclear diplomacy is a major loss for those concerned about the well-being of the Iranian people, as sanctions restored by the Donald Trump administration after quitting the JCPOA in 2018 have severely hurt the people of Iran and prospects for organic democratization while entrenching the corrupt authoritarians in Iran’s political elite. By almost any metric, life under sanctions is worse than during the period of JCPOA implementation. Life-saving medicine is harder to obtain, inflation is at truly catastrophic levels and many millions have fallen out of the ranks of the middle class. Even if the U.S. and Iran manage to de-escalate tensions during the remaining time in Biden’s first term, which seems increasingly likely following progress toward a prisoner swap, there will likely be only limited relief for the hard-pressed people of Iran.
Absent a resolution, there are dangerous warning signs on the horizon. The U.S. seizure of an Iranian oil tanker – the Suez Rajan – to enforce sanctions triggered a crisis, with Iran predictably retaliating by seizing other tankers with nebulous justifications. This tit-for-tat appears to have dragged U.S. marines into harm’s way, as the Biden administration is exploring deploying them on commercial tankers transiting the Persian Gulf to deter Iranian attacks. There is a growing prospect of an incident sparking direct fire between U.S. and Iranian forces. A full-blown war would be a disaster for Iranians and their efforts to secure greater freedom.
What could the U.S. do differently?
Aside from stepping up efforts to promote internet freedom, there is more the Biden administration could have done to help ordinary Iranians.
Biden could have surged visa and refugee processing – including humanitarian parole for Iranians – helping many more Iranians get to safety. Instead, the administration only began to increase refugee processing in March 2023, and at levels far below the Obama administration. Today, many Iranian students are still complaining of long administrative delays to securing visas or inexplicable rejections from U.S. consular officers. It wouldn’t be hard for the Biden administration to make visa and refugee processing a greater priority.
The Biden administration also could enact changes to enable Iranian Americans to send remittances to their loved ones on the ground. Such remittances are normal in other sanctioned countries like Cuba and Syria, but inexplicably barred for Iran in any circumstances other than hand-carrying cash into the country, which is not an option for many in the diaspora.
Strategically, the administration has doubled down on a de facto isolation and containment policy. However, both maximum pressure and maximum pressure-lite are corrosive to the cause of freedom and democracy in Iran. It may be too much to hope for a strategic reset or rethink from an administration focused on re-election. But smart engagement has a proven track record of benefits – both for U.S. interests and for the people of Iran.
Ryan Costello is the Policy Director with the National Iranian American Council, where he has worked since 2013. Follow him on Twitter: @RyeCostello.
Change and Continuity in Iran, One Year into the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ Uprising
By Ryan Costello
Middle East & North Africa
One year ago, Mahsa Amini was a 22-year-old Iranian woman of Kurdish heritage visiting Tehran with her family. In the weeks before her visit, the nation’s president – Ebrahim Raisi – had ordered a crackdown to more rigorously enforce mandatory hijab laws. Amini was arrested in Tehran for the supposed crime of improper hijab. During the arrest, reports indicate she was brutally beaten in a police van before collapsing into a coma and eventually dying.
The killing of Amini was shocking and led to more brutality as Iranian security forces repressed protests that erupted across the nation. More than five hundred protesters, including 70 children, were killed, thousands were arrested and at least seven men have been executed as the Judiciary rushed through sham trials despite documentation of torture and forced confessions.
Iran is a nation that often defies simple and binary explanations and satisfactory conclusions. One year later, the uprising sparked by the morality police’s killing of Amini has evolved, rather than ended.
The “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement lives on in the continuing confrontation between state and society over the policing of women’s bodies and dress. While the mass demonstrations have ebbed, Iranians have found subtler ways to pursue greater freedom even as the state is escalating efforts to re-establish compliance with the mandatory hijab.
Arguably the movement’s most enduring gain is that many more women have regularly defied the hijab laws in public places. For several months, the morality police were also pulled back from their routine confrontations with women. New threats to reinforce the ban seem unlikely to work. As former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami recently warned, the government’s violent crackdown has only widened the rifts in Iranian society. Esmail Kowsari, a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a member of parliament also revealed, “Last year, the media turned against us, and many people, including Members of Parliament, were scared and believed that the system was over.”
Many of the country’s leading human rights defenders and dissidents have called for radical transformation, symbolized most prominently by calls to transition from the Islamic Republic. Mir Hossein Mousavi, leader of the 2009 Green Movement and under house arrest since 2011, called for a referendum on the Islamic Republic’s existence, which would pave the way for a constitutional convention and democratization. This call was endorsed by many prominent figures, including Mostafa Tajzadeh, Saeed Madani, Faezeh Hashemi, and Mustafa Nili.
Yet the state has not seeded ground willingly. The journalists who reported on Mahsa Amini’s killing and funeral – Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi – are bravely defying the Iranian government’s efforts to intimidate and silence them in court. Prominent individuals – including actors and athletes – who have defied the hijab laws on social media posts have also faced arrest and harsh reprisals. While amnesty freed many of those initially arrested, prominent advocates for democracy and freedom remain incarcerated or have charges hanging over their heads. In parliament, lawmakers are steadily advancing a new “Chastity and Hijab” law that would impose new punishments on those who continue to defy mandatory veiling. In the lead-up to the anniversary of Amini’s killing, authorities have also cracked down preemptively, arresting professors and family members of those killed in the protests.
As monumental as the movement often felt, it is undeniable that many of the dynamics that preceded the uprising are still in place today.
The Islamic Republic and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei remain in charge. The state’s monopoly on violence remains unchallenged, and the protest movement – while extensive – remains leaderless. Both U.S. and Israeli intelligence reported that the protests posed no short-term threat to the Islamic Republic’s rule.
Likewise, the reformist movement within Iran is still exiled from the power structure. There is little indication that the old reformist champions can rally the people again in favor of pursuing change through the ballot box. The economic situation also remains bleak, with inflation reaching record highs and little hope for relief as sanctions, corruption, and mismanagement continue to pummel the economy. Efforts to claim the mantle of democratic change from outside the country have also led nowhere, with many of those jockeying for position only proving adept at arguing amongst themselves.
One thing that has changed is U.S. policy toward Iran. In some cases, the new focus was warranted and has led to some incremental benefits. The Joe Biden administration’s issuance of General License D-2 — already in the works before the protests and long called for by human rights advocates — made it easier for certain tech companies to continue operating in Iran or to expand the availability of encryption tools. However, Iran’s government has had a significant head start in developing its infrastructure of online repression, and far too few U.S. companies have moved to take full advantage of the more favorable licensing. The Biden administration needs to find out why companies aren’t taking full advantage. Is it because the scope of the licensing is too limited, the government’s outreach has not been convincing, or the U.S. sanctions regime remains too complex to navigate?
The U.S. has also targeted Iranian rights abusers. Steps include sanctioning the morality police and a variety of officials involved in the crackdown and supporting a fact-finding mission at the United Nations and Iran’s removal from the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
However, these efforts coincided with the failure of attempts to restore the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which offered the prospect of relief from broad sanctions. Prior to the outbreak of protests, the U.S. had been pursuing – with varying degrees of intensity – a restoration of the pact, but that is no longer the case. Meanwhile, Iran has deepened its military cooperation with Russia following the illegal invasion of Ukraine, further alienating Americans and Europeans.
The apparent collapse of nuclear diplomacy is a major loss for those concerned about the well-being of the Iranian people, as sanctions restored by the Donald Trump administration after quitting the JCPOA in 2018 have severely hurt the people of Iran and prospects for organic democratization while entrenching the corrupt authoritarians in Iran’s political elite. By almost any metric, life under sanctions is worse than during the period of JCPOA implementation. Life-saving medicine is harder to obtain, inflation is at truly catastrophic levels and many millions have fallen out of the ranks of the middle class. Even if the U.S. and Iran manage to de-escalate tensions during the remaining time in Biden’s first term, which seems increasingly likely following progress toward a prisoner swap, there will likely be only limited relief for the hard-pressed people of Iran.
Absent a resolution, there are dangerous warning signs on the horizon. The U.S. seizure of an Iranian oil tanker – the Suez Rajan – to enforce sanctions triggered a crisis, with Iran predictably retaliating by seizing other tankers with nebulous justifications. This tit-for-tat appears to have dragged U.S. marines into harm’s way, as the Biden administration is exploring deploying them on commercial tankers transiting the Persian Gulf to deter Iranian attacks. There is a growing prospect of an incident sparking direct fire between U.S. and Iranian forces. A full-blown war would be a disaster for Iranians and their efforts to secure greater freedom.
What could the U.S. do differently?
Aside from stepping up efforts to promote internet freedom, there is more the Biden administration could have done to help ordinary Iranians.
Biden could have surged visa and refugee processing – including humanitarian parole for Iranians – helping many more Iranians get to safety. Instead, the administration only began to increase refugee processing in March 2023, and at levels far below the Obama administration. Today, many Iranian students are still complaining of long administrative delays to securing visas or inexplicable rejections from U.S. consular officers. It wouldn’t be hard for the Biden administration to make visa and refugee processing a greater priority.
The Biden administration also could enact changes to enable Iranian Americans to send remittances to their loved ones on the ground. Such remittances are normal in other sanctioned countries like Cuba and Syria, but inexplicably barred for Iran in any circumstances other than hand-carrying cash into the country, which is not an option for many in the diaspora.
Strategically, the administration has doubled down on a de facto isolation and containment policy. However, both maximum pressure and maximum pressure-lite are corrosive to the cause of freedom and democracy in Iran. It may be too much to hope for a strategic reset or rethink from an administration focused on re-election. But smart engagement has a proven track record of benefits – both for U.S. interests and for the people of Iran.
Ryan Costello is the Policy Director with the National Iranian American Council, where he has worked since 2013. Follow him on Twitter: @RyeCostello.
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