It has been over a year since 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Jina Amini was killed in Iran after being arrested by the morality police for not wearing ‘proper hijab,’ sparking global protests. Mahsa Day, the one year anniversary of Amini’s death, marked the continuation of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, with protests occurring at City Hall in downtown Los Angeles on September 16, 2023.
Negar Karameti, one of the organizers of the L.A. protest, saw attendance from a couple thousand people continuing to urge for governmental change in Iran. “We are looking for regime change in Iran and government change because it is cruel and going against its people,” Karameti said.
At a previous protest in February denoting the 44th anniversary since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 the crowd was noticeably more packed. “We had another event on February 11; there were about 100,000 people here,” Karameti said.
“The best way to show support is to become united and to inform everybody what is going on, what people are going through and what is actually happening,” Karamati said. “There are lots of different views, different parties [from the] left [and] right for Iran, but like I said there is just one enemy; so we have to be united to overcome this.”
Political guest speakers were present at the event, including city council members and members of Congress. The former acting Director of National Intelligence and former U.S. Ambassador to Germany under the Trump Administration, Richard Grenell, criticized the Biden administration’s prisoner swap deal. “I am outraged to see our government giving $6 billion to this crazy regime,” Grenell said. “This money will fund more terrorism, it’ll fund more chaos… it’ll fund more killings of Mahsa and other women.”
The White House has defended the effort by noting sanctions are still in place and saying that it won’t turn a blind eye to hostage-taking. Experts also have weighed in, with one calling the deal a “stepping stone” to an improved relationship while noting there is more progress to be made.
This prisoner swap funding unfreezes $6 billion in assets that went to Iran and led to the release of 5 detained American prisoners.
Although these funds are supporting the Iranian government, the purpose of the funds doesn’t address the remaining U.S. Iran tensions. The White House released a statement about the crackdown on foreign relations with Iran in relation to Amini’s death: “Over the last year, the United States has responded to the calls of the Iranian people and organized an unprecedented diplomatic campaign that led to the Iranian government’s removal from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, and the creation of a UN fact-finding mission to investigate their human rights abuses,” Biden said.
Jahanshah Ardalan, a Kurdish community member attending Mahsa Day, said he “lost loved ones to the Islamic Republic of Iran.” He spoke to the deaths of activists that followed Mahsa Amini: “They killed over 500 other young activists or anybody who wanted to speak out against the tyranny taking place in Iran right now, and the movement still continues,” Ardalan said. “[The emotions] express our disgust, our utter disappointment with the Islamic Republic of Iran and show our solidarity with the youth of Iran who want to be free, to self-express freely, with no fear of reprisal.”
Khodanoor Lajaei, who was arrested and tortured by the Iranian police, was handcuffed in a similar body position around a flagpole. Lajaei’s photo of being tortured became another icon and symbol of resistance following his death on October 1, 2022, on what would be known as Bloody Friday, one of the deadliest days of protest in the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.
