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00:00 Thank you for being with us. We start with Iran. Today is a year since the controversial
00:03 arrest by Iran's so-called fashion police of a woman over her headscarf. Maisa Amini
00:08 was 22 years old, a Kurdish woman living in Iran's capital, Tehran. Fashion police, perhaps
00:13 too cosy a term for the hardline officers who crack down on any contravention of the
00:18 rules imposed by the regime in Iran on clothing. Three days later, Maisa was dead in police
00:25 custody. The police denied wrongdoing, but the story of torture, humiliation, beating
00:30 and then her death leaked out. The protests that her death inspired soon became a movement
00:35 calling for change in Iran. We have two guests here to discuss the situation. Lila Jacinto
00:42 is our international affairs editor. We also have on the other side of the studio an Iranian
00:47 filmmaker Sepehdeh Farsi. Sepehdeh, thank you for being with us. I'm starting with Lila
00:51 though. The situation, clearly first anniversary of Maisa Amini's death, it is a real milestone.
01:00 Has this led to any protests? I would like to see a stepping up of protests. What's the
01:03 situation? Well, it is a nightmare milestone for the Iranian regime. And Iranian President
01:08 Ibrahim Raisi was asked about this in a rare interview with the US network on Tuesday.
01:15 He was specifically asked that if there are protests on the anniversary, will security
01:19 forces crack down? And he did not mince his words. He basically said, if there are protests,
01:27 they are protests by foreign agents. That's what he called them. They are foreign agents
01:32 who are out to destabilize Iran. And he said, in no uncertain terms, we know what will happen
01:39 to them. We know what happened to the extraordinarily brave Iranian women and men, young girls and
01:46 boys who took to the streets. The statistics are more than 200 people killed. This is what
01:53 we know. More than 20,000 arrested, at least seven men executed in connection to the protests.
02:01 So yes, this is a very difficult, for the regime's point of view, this is a difficult
02:07 moment because they really fear that the anti-regime protests, the movement could rejuvenate. And
02:15 I mean, fundamental to all this is there's been a crackdown and they've managed to push
02:19 this under the ground for now. But you know, the structural problems remain. Iranian youth,
02:27 and it's an extraordinarily young population, you know, more than what's it's something
02:33 like 60 percent of the Iranian population is under the age of 30. It's you know, the
02:38 regime is deeply discredited with the youth. So I mean, the existential problems, the structural
02:46 problems remain. And the regime knows this. You know, they crack down. But the death of
02:51 Mahsa Amini and the protests, it was really a milestone. They can't put this back into
02:57 the bottle. So it's a weak regime and they know it. And the Iranian people are also aware
03:04 of this is how the system works. They are patient, but you know, they're not going to
03:09 give up. So they may crush the protests for now, but the regime is weak.
03:16 Weak regime. But as you point, the genie is out of the bottle. You can't put it back in
03:19 and people have this taste for demonstrating, which has continued throughout the year. It's
03:24 been a nightmare year for many of the protesters, of course, who took to the streets because
03:27 of Mahsa Amini's death. And you've dealt with this on our website, France24.com.
03:31 Indeed. You know, we've got special coverage of this on our website. And among the special
03:36 coverage, we've interviewed protesters whose lives were really upturned in the past 12
03:42 months. Among them was a schoolteacher from Mahsa Amini's hometown of Sakez in the Kurdistan
03:53 region. Now, in her native Kurdistan region, Mahsa Amini is known as Jinnah Amini. Like
03:59 many Iranian Kurds, the family was not allowed to officially enter her Kurdish name. But
04:07 she is so Mahsa Amini is her Persianized name. And this person who we interviewed, he is
04:13 now in Europe. So everyone that we interviewed fled into exile and they are now talking from
04:19 the safety of Europe. This gentleman was a schoolteacher in Sakez and he was at the cemetery
04:26 on her burial day. And he describes how thousands of people had gathered at the cemetery in
04:31 Sakez. Apparently, there was an eerie, frightening quiet. They were waiting for her body to arrive
04:38 from Tehran. And suddenly a man in the cemetery shouted out, she could have been my daughter.
04:45 And from there, there was no going back. I mean, the protests spread from, you know,
04:50 this periphery of Iran across the nation. And one of the things about these protests
04:56 is what role was played by minorities on the periphery of this official Shiite state. You
05:03 know, some of the worst atrocities were in the Sistan, Balochistan province, right on
05:08 the east. The Baloch are a Sunni minority. And we interviewed a woman, a Baloch woman
05:15 who was arrested. She was sexually harassed in custody. And, you know, she tells us she's
05:22 now in Europe. She did not want her location disclosed. And she said that she's still traumatized
05:27 by what happened to her. So this is a nation traumatized. Many of its citizens are in exile.
05:34 They say they are scarred, but they say they will not give up the fight.
05:37 Lila, thank you. Bear with us. Sepeh De Farsi, film director. Thank you for joining us. I
05:42 started with Lila so you could have a chance to hear the whole France Vincat telling of
05:47 the story before you give us your sense of what's been going on, your sense of what it
05:51 means and how you feel today, one year on after it all started.
05:56 I feel a lot of sadness for all that has happened and a lot of excitement because I'm sure it's
06:04 going to move again in Iran, abroad, of course, but also in Iran. And the regime knows it
06:11 very well. What you mentioned, Raisi's words, means that and Khamenei also spoke. He said
06:18 he was talking about John Steinbeck and McCarthyism and saying that what kind of regime would
06:27 allow dissidents to question its legitimacy, look at even the state, United States and
06:35 so forth and so on. But to say that they are really aware that it's going to the earthquake
06:40 is coming and they don't know when exactly or how it will happen, but they know that
06:45 it's coming, that they're sitting under a volcano, on a volcano. And the thing is that
06:51 women are resisting. Young people are resisting men also, but mainly women. I mean, this compulsory
07:01 hijab thing is gone. I mean, we lived through this for 40 years, more than 40 years. And
07:06 these images that we're seeing, witnessing now, regardless of the fines that they are
07:12 taking, of being thrown out of their jobs and not being led to places, you know, even
07:18 prisoners within the Evin prison are refusing to wear a mandatory hijab, which is amazing.
07:27 I mean, I guess Mohammadi is one of the very famous political prisoners. She, an activist,
07:35 she was beaten two days ago and she wrote about this, but she said that they threw me
07:39 back to myself because I was refusing to wear it. And this is inside the regime's worst
07:44 prison, which is Evin. So this is just an example of all that's going to unravel soon.
07:50 And we're all waiting. This like the 16th is going to be, obviously it's unknown of
07:55 how exactly abroad we know all of the, you know, there have been calls and Gina Massa's
08:02 family published a letter a few weeks ago, two weeks ago, calling for rallies and said
08:08 that they were looking forward to the anniversary of her death and that it was not over.
08:14 Indeed, I mean, three days in police custody before the death was announced. It's a horrific
08:19 thing to relive the whole kind of thing. Do you feel, and you pointed out very clearly,
08:25 this has been led by women. Yes, that kind of bravery.
08:28 Absolutely. And Massa's death was it's not at all incidental, but it was one incident
08:35 or accident or death that triggered a whole movement. But a few months before her death,
08:44 there had already been arrests of filmmakers, men and women of Sepideh Roshnu, who is another
08:50 activist who had been arrested because she protested refusing to wear the hijab. And
08:57 that went unknown or unnoticed. And then a few days or weeks after that, Massa's death
09:04 triggered all this. But I mean that for the past months before September 2022, there had
09:10 been a huge amount of tension within Iran, but the media abroad was probably not aware
09:16 of it, you know, because then it all of a sudden exploded with this incident.
09:21 Did you go through any, have you been through any kind of harassment in that sense? Have
09:26 you found any problems doing your job, being a woman?
09:29 Well, yes, of course. To begin with, I was imprisoned at the age of 16 and I spent almost
09:35 a year in jail. Imprisoned?
09:36 Yes. So that was the beginning of my adventures. And then I was banned from school and from
09:41 university. So I had to leave Iran because I could not do anything there.
09:45 And that was because you...
09:46 Because I was active politically as a high school student.
09:51 And these are the kind of things that any young person in any country which has rights
09:57 would be able to do and express and get involved in and maybe even be praised for it.
10:02 And people would take harder than that for less of that. Meaning for wearing jeans or
10:08 for wearing shorts, you know, this kind of, you could be arrested in Iran, obviously.
10:12 So I mean, the list is so long that you can't, you know, go over it, obviously.
10:17 I know Leela is dying to ask you a question. Please come in. Please come in.
10:21 It's not really a question, but I mean, people like you, Sepideh, there are so many Iranians
10:26 in exile. And I feel like, you know, we need to take note and take our hats off to the
10:33 mobilisation of Iranian exiles.
10:35 10% of our population is in exile. 8 million.
10:38 10%? 8 million people?
10:39 Yes.
10:40 It's a stunning statistic, isn't it?
10:42 Absolutely. And they are the ones who can reach people in Iran, which is also of tremendous
10:47 support for people inside Iran because they are getting the news from abroad.
10:52 So the community in exile is extraordinarily mobilised and are not likely to keep this
10:59 quiet.
11:00 Are you, do you have any, are there any events for the anniversary that you're going to be
11:05 at?
11:06 Many, many. Yes. In Paris itself, there will be a garden in the 10th arrondissement that
11:12 will be named after Massoud Jinnah Amini on Saturday morning. And then there's a press
11:16 conference held and then there is a rally in the evening. So, and there are many other
11:21 events on the 22nd of September. There will be also letters from women, political prisoners.
11:28 One of them is Nages Mohammadi. Five of them have written letters that they sent out of
11:35 prison, that they were published in Le Monde and they will be read in Gueteliric. There
11:40 are many, many events all over the world. And in Bonn on the 19th, there are protests
11:46 against Raisi's presence in New York.
11:51 What is extraordinary is that the world's public opinion, the international public opinion
11:55 is with us, with the Iranians, with the Iranian women and with this movement. Yet the politicians
12:01 are doing business with this bloody regime, bloody handed regime. And what we are asking
12:07 is please be coherent, stop doing business. This regime is bound to go, be with us, bear
12:15 a bit. It's not because of one contract or one hostage who is going to be freed and two
12:22 weeks later, another hostage will be taken from another country or you know, that prolonging
12:27 this regime's life is really attrition to the people of Iran. So what we are demanding
12:33 is coherence and the international politicians level, you know, and stop, stopping like Iranian
12:42 deputy being in the Human Rights Commission in the UN. It's a joke. It's, I don't know.
12:49 It's not coherent as you say.
12:50 No, it's not. It's not. So that's what we are demanding really from all the politicians.
12:54 Sabadeh, I need to stop you there. I could talk to you all night though. It's fascinating
12:58 to hear your take on the situation and your experiences that you live through. Thank you
13:01 so much for joining us, Sabadeh Farsi, Iranian film director on the anniversary of the arrest
13:06 of Maaser Amini which of course kicked off this whole year of demonstrations in Iran.
13:12 Thanks to Lila Jacinto, our International Affairs Editor and I'd advise you to check
13:16 out Lila's work on our website france24.com on this very story. Lila, thank you. Sabadeh,
13:21 thank you very much for being with us. Pleasure to meet you.
13:23 (chewing)