برای خواندن این مطلب به فارسی اینجا را کلیک کنید
Four years ago today, Jina Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman from Saqqez, died from injuries inflicted by Iranian security forces following her arrest by morality police in Tehran over her alleged violation of the country’s compulsory hijab rules. Her death became the spark for one of the most consequential protest movements in modern Iranian history, fundamentally changing the balance between state and society on the policing of women’s attire.
Anger over the killing of Amini first emerged in Tehran and quickly spread across the country. At her funeral in Saqqez the following day, mourners chanted the Kurdish slogan “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” – “Woman, Life, Freedom” – words that would soon become the defining slogan of a nationwide movement.
Within days, protests had reached cities across Iran. Women removed their headscarves in public in defiance , girls protested inside schools, university students challenged authorities on campuses, and men and women marched together in the streets. From Tehran and other major cities to Kurdistan, Baluchistan and many smaller communities, Iranians from different ethnic, social and economic backgrounds joined protests that grew far beyond the circumstances of Amini’s death.
What began with outrage over the death of a young woman in police custody became a broader demand for dignity, bodily autonomy, equality and freedom. The Iranian government responded with severe repression. Security forces used lethal force against protesters, thousands were arrested, and detainees reported torture, sexual violence and other forms of abuse. Human rights organizations have documented killings, arbitrary detention, torture and other serious violations committed during the suppression of the 2022 protests.
Yet the story of Woman, Life, Freedom is not only a story of repression. It is also the story of a movement that produced real and lasting change. The clearest example can be seen on Iran’s streets today. Before September 2022, appearing in public without a hijab was an exceptional and highly risky act of individual defiance. Four years later, despite compulsory hijab remaining the law, large numbers of Iranian women routinely appear without it in streets, cafés, shopping centers and other public spaces and – despite risks – regularly do not face repercussions or encounter enforcement.
Authorities have tried to reverse this change through arrests, summonses, surveillance, warning messages, vehicle seizures and pressure on businesses. But women have continued to resist. What was once an isolated act of defiance became a widespread social reality.
That is one of the most significant achievements of Woman, Life, Freedom. The movement did not bring about all the political and legal changes its participants demanded, but it changed everyday life and shifted the boundaries of what the state has been able to impose on millions of women. Iranian women and their allies did not wait for this freedom to be granted to them. They exercised it themselves, collectively and at considerable personal risk.
At the same time, much of the struggle remains unfinished. Woman, Life, Freedom was never only about compulsory hijab. It raised a more fundamental question about whether women should be treated as full and equal citizens, with the right to make decisions about their own bodies, families and futures. It also pushed back strongly against the violence of the state being deployed against women and other civilians for conducting themselves in ways that are normal and accepted in many other societies.
Compulsory hijab has not been removed from Iranian law, and women still do not enjoy equal rights with men in important areas of family and civil law, including marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance. Women’s rights advocates continue to face arrest and prosecution, and the state continues to claim authority over deeply personal decisions in women’s lives.
The movement also became much larger than any single region or community. Amini was from Iran’s Kurdish community, and Saqqez and other Kurdish cities played an important role in the uprising. But protesters from across Iran made her death their own cause. From Zahedan to Tehran, Mashhad, Shiraz, Isfahan, Tabriz and cities across Kurdistan and Khuzestan, people from different ethnic and religious communities participated in a movement whose central demands crossed those divisions.
That nationwide legacy remains visible on the fourth anniversary. Today, shops and businesses have closed in several Kurdish cities, including Saqqez and Sanandaj, as merchants joined calls for a general strike marking Amini’s death. Reports also indicate an increased security presence in parts of the region and arrests of activists ahead of the anniversary. These actions are another reminder that, four years later, the demands raised in 2022 have not disappeared.
The cost of the movement was enormous. People were killed, wounded and imprisoned. Families were left grieving, protesters suffered life-changing injuries, and many participants were forced into exile. Those sacrifices should not be romanticized or reduced to symbols. But neither should Woman, Life, Freedom be remembered only for what was done to its participants.
Four years later, its legacy can also be measured in what Iranian women and society changed despite that repression. Millions of Iranians saw women publicly challenge compulsory rules governing their bodies and lives on a scale that had not existed before. The social reality surrounding compulsory hijab changed, and demands for women’s equality became even more deeply embedded in public life.
It is also worth considering how those with a pro-war agenda have attempted to co-opt the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement. While Iranians themselves demonstrated their independence and agency and delivered far-reaching societal change at great cost in 2022, others have argued that only military action can deliver the rights and freedom that Iranians seek. Perversely, an Iran International reporter signed ruins in Gaza with the “Woman, Life, Freedom” slogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the same in efforts to appeal to Iranians amid the June 2025 war.
These arguments crested in the next major protest movement in December 2025-January 2026, which took place between phases of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Protests started organically amid widespread economic grievances, but morphed into a confrontation with the political system as a whole. Extensive violence accompanied the protest wave, and former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi urged them from outside the country, issuing calls to seize and hold city centers. Iranian security forces responded with overwhelming force on January 8 and 9, 2026, leading to thousands of protesters being killed. President Donald Trump promised that “help is on the way,” and by the end of the following month launched a massive (and failed, thus far) regime change war against Iran.
In the wake of so much bloodshed, Iranians inside and outside the country face fractured narratives. The Iranian system’s authoritarianism and human rights abuses are indisputable, but so too is the attempt to co-opt those abuses to launch a war that has killed thousands of Iranians and left not just the country, but the entire region and global economy reeling.
In our view, Iranians proved in 2022 that organic, grassroots movements for change can and will shape Iranian society for the better. By contrast, the war in 2026 has proven that bombs do not bring liberation, and set back the cause of those seeking a government that reflects their aspirations and respects their rights. In contrast to Woman, Life, Freedom, war has killed, wounded and impoverished – irrespective of gender, class and political ideology.
NIAC honors the memory of Jina Mahsa Amini and all those who lost their lives while demanding dignity, freedom and fundamental rights, and stands with those who continue peacefully pursuing those rights today. We call on Iranian authorities to end compulsory hijab and all punishment and harassment of women over their clothing; release those imprisoned for peaceful protest, civil society activity and human rights advocacy; end repression and intimidation throughout Iran; and reform laws that deny women equal rights in marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance and other areas of civil life. Likewise, we call on the U.S. to halt its war, blockade and broad sanctions targeting all of Iranian society, which has worsened the human rights situation in Iran and robbed many Iranians of their lives and well-being.
Four years after Jina Mahsa Amini’s death, Woman, Life, Freedom should be remembered not only for the brutality it confronted, but for the change it created. Iranian women transformed an act of individual defiance into a new social reality. Their struggle now continues for that freedom to be recognized in law, and for the equality, dignity and fundamental rights that remain unfulfilled.