Picture from BBC NEWS
Gen Z has been viewed as the revolutionary generation, seeing how the majority tends to be rebellious, and anti-governmental while expressing it through actions globally. Most actions are the young generation liberating protests to the next level using their knowledge of social media as an advantage.
It seems like students in Iran are doing just the same at the moment. Young students in Iran are standing up to the Iranian government while withstanding all the life-threatening consequences. As schools across the country protest, yelling risky chants such as “death to the dictator,” it has been reported in an article from the United Nations human rights “Iran protests: Reports of child deaths, detentions are deeply worrying,” by a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ravina Shamdasani, around 23 or more children were killed and many more injured from the school protests by police. While an unreported amount of children that participated had been sent to what the minister of education calls “psychological centers” causing worry to all parents. As for the diverse age protests CNN article “As many as 14,00 arrested over last six weeks, United Nation say’s” by Alex Hardie and Hande Atay Alam states around the past 6 weeks over 14,000 adults, children, men and women have been arrested from any involvement in the protests. Yet around 277 people were reported dead from the security force’s violent response.
Sparking this historical event was the injustice of Mahsa Amini. In the article “Events in Iran since Mahsa Amini’s death in custody,” it was written that Mahsa Amini was a 22-year-old Iranian woman who was detained by morality police (a unit that enforces dress codes to women) in Tehran for not wearing her hijab “correctly.” Soon after, the police reported that she had started struggling with a heart attack while being taken to the police station to be educated, yet Amini’s family claims she had never had any heart problems. After being held in the hospital, Mahsa Amini died on September 16, 2022. It was revealed publicly by a former senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that Mahsa had died from head injuries and a concussion. As the public became infuriated by this injustice, it led to the start of Iran protests for women’s equality. Protesters uploaded many videos of police shooting and becoming violent toward the protesters, resulting in Iran responding with internet restrictions according to Ivana Saric’s article “Not Going Back”: Gen Z at the forefront of protests in Iran. Although this event may be going on in Iran, it seems to be leaking into LA, how far will these protests spread and how much will it impact the Iranian government?
Written by Staff Writer, Jackeline Gomez