“Oath to our friend’s blood, we will stay till the end of this way.”

Author: Sara（Iran）

▲Photo：Justin Essah @Unsplash

I am Sara, an Iranian girl who hates the Islamic Republic regime of Iran. At first, I wanted to start my story of fighting with the first demonstration I had taken part in; however, I understood that, like most Iranian girls, I had begun my fight against the regime at a very early age when I resisted wearing the mandatory hijab. My friends and I did not wear hijab unless forced to. I remember once our school principal did not let us take part in class since we did not cover our hair completely. I resisted wearing a hijab when we had guests in our home since it seemed ridiculous.

Gradually when I became an adult, I understood my problem was not only the mandatory hijab; all other rules were not fair too. I talked with my friends a lot, and we all were on the same side. We decided to create a website and started writing about the regime's brutal acts. We discussed different discriminate laws after a while and also asked other people to write their life stories and what was bothering them. Eventually, our website became famous. We received a judicial announcement that told us to delete the website and its archive, and we were deprived of virtual activities for three years. Then we decided to create channels anonymously and with funny names.

Around ten years ago, it was the first big demonstration against the regime in Iran. I participated; however, my parents disagreed(they were scared of being arrested by soldiers). I also felt frightened at first, but when I saw that I was not the only person there, other people shouted; I became braver and shouted louder. Courage is contagious!

Since that year, there have been lots of protests and demonstrations every year against the regime. My friends and I participated in all of them. People helped each other a lot; whenever one person saw police officers, he/she started to announce to others. However, police officers would see him/her. If we were chased by soldiers and ran away in avenues, people would let us go inside their homes. Once one of us was arrested, and she was in jail for six months. Recently, I lost one of my close friends, who was also an active girl and participated in all the social and civil protests. The soldiers arrested her in the street while she was writing on the wall; they kicked her head brutally till she died.

In my opinion, the biggest fault of the regime is that they think if they arrest us, kill us, or shut down the internet, etc., we will be afraid of them, but we see that all these brutal acts make us stronger.

One of the most significant differences between the recent movement and previous ones is the unity among Iranians outside and inside Iran. One of the Islamic tricks was to put these two groups opposing each other. But right now, we understand that we just have one enemy, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The slogan of this new movement in Iran is“Woman-Life-Freedom”. We are fighting for gender equality, and we want to eliminate religion from our constitution since all discrimination in our laws is based on Islam. Our next regime will be secular, although people are free to have their religion. Because of the International actions of the current government, there are lots of sanctions on Iran, and all these affect people’s lives; we are under economic pressure, so we are fighting to have a normal and standard life as well, and finally, we are fighting for freedom, every kind of freedom, freedom of speech, life, body autonomy, etc.

We, as Iranians, have always been sad about not being heard by the world, but right now, we are so happy that other countries hear our voices; it makes us hopeful. First of all, we appreciate all your support over these last months. Please continue it, spread news of Iran’s movements and revolution, prevent spreading fake news published by the regime, and do not let your governments continue their relations with the current administration; sign up petitions that we are preparing.

Thank you so much for your attention. It means a lot to us.