The Prize Sacharov 2023 conferred to Mahsa Jina Amini

Translated by Angela Tagliafierro

It was September 16^th, 2022, when Mahsa Jina Amini, a Kurdish-Iranian twenty-two-year-old girl, died because of a brain haemorrhage in a hospital in Tehran. On September 13^th the Guidance Patrol, i.e., the Morality Police, arrested her for not wearing the hijab properly. Since her death, she has become the symbol of an unprecedented rebellion of the population, causing protests led by women and supported by most of the people in the country. These demonstrations were so strong that people asked for the end of the Islamic Republic, shouting slogans such as "Death for the Dictator”, referring to Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme guide.

On October 19^th, 2023, the Conference of the Presidents of the European Parliament assigned to Mahsa Jina Amini and the movements of protests deriving from the demands of the Kurdish-Iranian population, “Women, life and freedom”, the prize Sacharov. It is the greatest recognition the European Union confers for the efforts made in favour of the human rights. Since 1988, this prize has been celebrating the people and the organisations defending the fundamental freedoms and human rights. At the ceremony, held on December 12^th during the plenary at Strasbourg, Mahsa’s parents were supposed to be there. However, they were prevented from leaving despite having a visa to France. After this episode, the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola wrote a tweet to encourage the Iranian Government to let Mahsa’s family leave. “I call on Iran’s regime to retract the decision to ban Mahsa Amini’s mother, father & brother from travelling. Their place next Tuesday is at the European Parliament in Strasbourg to receive the Sakharov Prize, with the brave women of Iran. The truth cannot be silenced.”

In contexts like this one where human rights are explicitly violated, Iranian authorities have proved many times not to be motivated to collaborate with the international institutions and organisations committed to protecting human rights. In March 2023, Teheran denied the way into the country to all the independent experts working for the United Nations and to the international observer, except for the special speaker of the negative effect of coercive unilateral measures over the entitlement of human rights. The authorities censured the media, interfered into TV channels, and blocked access to the Internet to stop the protests and hide the range of the violence. For months, the morality police has been bursting into female schools where the students refused to wear the cover, poisoning the food or emitting toxic gases. The repression of the regime was particularly strong in the Kurdish region of the country, always considered responsible for the internal Iranian revolts. Over the months, this hard oppression of the protests has become less and less intense because of the presence of the morality police in the street. As a matter of fact, this authority came back into the street to patrol the streets to be sure that citizens respect the dress code of the Islamic Republic. Mahsa Jina Amini’s death spread a strong feeling of injustice and fear in the population, especially among women.

On Tuesday, December 12^th, during the awards ceremony, the President of the European Council showed gratefulness and the European support to the movement “Women, life and freedom” and to all the women fighting and dying for freedom. “You are not alone, and this Parliament is your home”, clarified Metsola. The Amini’s family delegate read a letter written by Mahsa’s mother. Sorry for not being there and defining this obstacle as a violation of all the human and legal standards, the woman compares her daughter to Joan of Arc, celebrating the two women like daughters of the history, sources of inspiration through the centuries and between the borders. To her, Mahsa has become a secret code to freedom which spread the dream of liberty from her natal country, Kurdistan, to the Middle East and all over the world.

The letter ends with a yell of strength as well as of pain: “We hope that no more voice will be afraid of pronouncing the word freedom”. In the European Parliament offices in Strasbourg, Mahsa’s voice and her mother’s have not been silenced. Quite the opposite, they crossed the world to give voice “to values rising up over the borders and time”.

Mondo Internazionale APS – Riproduzione Riservata ® 2023