The fearless women who risk it all to undemine Iran’s oppressive regime | World | News
BY day, they are office workers and school teachers; ordinary citizens who struggle to make their salaries stretch to cover basic necessities in a heavily sanctioned country where inflation runs at a punishing 43 per cent.
But by night they become the thorn in the side of Iran’s fundamentalist regime: activists who risk their very lives to organise ways of undermining Iran’s theocracy to remind Iranians that there is another way.
And, with presidential elections this week to decide who should become president of Iran following the unexpoected death of “Butcher of Tehran” Ebrahim Raisi, they have never been busier.
Tara has spent the past week tearing down posters of presidential candidates and replacing them with those supporting the exiled opposition group People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK).
Banned literature including leaflets, pamphlets and posters is printed at great risk by secret supporters across the city.
“I have to admit I stayed completely away from politics for most of my life. I led a normal life like any Iranian woman – like many of my friends,” said the 30-year-old last night from her home in Isfahan,
“But that changed during the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests. It’s as if the pressure had been building up and building up and finally it just became too much. “
Located around 270 miles south of Iran’s capital, Tehran, Isfahan was traditionally famed for its palaces, tiled mosques and minarets.
Now Iran’s third biggest city has become more commonly associated with military industry and development of the country’s nuclear weapons.
“We have have spent the last few nights finding suitable sights for anti-regime posters and putting them up,” she said.
“One has been torn down by regime agents, but the others are still there and people are looking at them.”
With elections in the offing, city walls are plastered with posters of candidates. Much is being made of so-called “reformist” Masoud Pezeshkian, the 70-year-old former combat medic who is endorsed by all of Iran’s moderate groups.
His inclusion by the 12-strong Guardian Council on the list of approved candidates raised eyebrows, and has been taken in some quarters outside of Iran as a tacit admission that Raisi’s hardline policies went too far.
But inside Iran, most aren’t swayed.
Last week Pezeshkian admitted his real objective was to prevent the regime’s biggest fear – low turnout – which prevents the Iran’s government from proclaiming to outside states that it is loved.
“I joined this election to generate enthusiasm for participation against enemies watching us,” said Pezeshkian.
“If people don’t show up, our country will be at risk.”
According to research conducted by NCRI, only 8.2 per cent – 5 million people – voted in March’s legislative elections. Even inflated official figures had turnout at 41 per cent – 25 million people – which is still the lowest number since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Many ballots were spoiled
“The regime is trying to fool us into believing that Pezeshkian is a reformer,’ she said.
“They need him to appear different from Raisi, who was a fanatic who used uncompromising policies against us. They know these policies failed to control Iranians following the Amini protests
“But we know the truth: there is no difference between Pezeshkian and the others. They are all hardliners who exist only to fulfil the will of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, without whose direct permission nothing can happen.”
Just four years ago Tara was living “a normal life “ in which political activism played no part.
The Amini protests were seismic.
“I remember vividly going to work one Saturday when I passed some young people who were very ordinary and were cursing against the regime in the streets,” she said.
Seeing the scale of protests around the country reassured her.
“When I came home from work at night, I would try to hear the news. The internet is very slow in Iran. Sometimes the regime narrows the bandwidth so much that even text messages can barely be sent. We resort to breaking the filtering and testing different VPNs”.
She added: “One day I was reading the news of the protests when I saw how they contained people from different strata of life, from retirees to workers and teachers. I realised that other people, people just like me, were looking for an opportunity to protest against the regime.
“I felt I had to get involved.”
Raisi’s death in a mysterious helicopter crash caused no tear-shedding among MEK supporters.
As a senior Tehran judge in 1988 Raisi – a member of the infamous “death committee” – sanctioned the execution of some 5,000 MEK dissidents, after a “second fatwa” issued against communists and leftists parties by former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Now the NCRI, the MEK’s diplomatic wing and self-proclaimed “government -in- waiting”, has a ten-point plan which would see Iran become secular, democratic – and non-nuclear.
Tara’s next act would be “on another level”.
On Thursday her small cell eschewed posters in favour projecting an image of Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI’s president-elect, on to public walls.
“I could see that the cars were slowing down or some people were stopping and watching. Some openly cheered,“ she said.
“Others paused and started thinking about it. This was the best gift for me because I saw that my work was having an impact.”
The nighttime forays are bursting with danger.
‘It can be challenging to be out at night, especially for a woman,” she said.
“I must often pass men who I feel could hurt me. The other night, I was bothered by drug addicts, There are so many drug addicts in Isfahan nowadays – mainly younger men who don’t feel as if they have any future. But they can be menacing.
It is agents of the regime who present the biggest challenge, however.
“On Tuesday night I chose my route to go and see what had happened to the posters we put up on Monday,” she said.
“I saw two regime agents sitting a little way away , waiting for whoever put them up to come and reveal themselves. I turned around and walked in the other direction.
“Security patrols roam the streets everywhere under any pretext and trap young people breaking rules.
“I have been able to escape many times just because of the speed of my actions. “
She added: “We know we are risking our futures and possibly even our very lives every time we step out of our homes to carry out this work.
“One of our family friends is now in prison because of his support for the MEK and his activities, and I know that the path I chose has a heavy price.
“But I think that freedom and human dignity are worth it. “
Tara is not alone. Across the country hundreds of little unassuming cells work hard to the same effect.
In Tehran, single mother Roya, 35, leads one of them.
“My father was killed by this regime just because he supported the MEK, so I have very different reasons for being involved,” she said.
“Because of this I know very well what will happen to us if we are arrested, but I fight and overcome this fear. I always remember that it is said ‘fear is the brother of death.’
“Fear is always there, but we must stand against it. I am a woman, and in Iran, under the rule of this misogynistic and reactionary criminal system, the oppression of women is much greater than that of men.
” So I fight for the thought that, just maybe, omne dsu struggling with the motivation that one day Iran will be liberated and my daughter and the rest of the people will be able to live freely.”