‘By the time you read this, I might be in jail’ — the daily terror of a female protester in Iran

By the time you read this, I might be in jail. It could happen at any time, like it has to so many of my friends. Every time we go out into the street to join the protests, we know it could be our last day of freedom.

If they arrest me, I’ll be proud. Tehran’s prisons are filled with the best, the bravest, our intellectuals and our activists. We know this is our last chance and because of that we are ready to pay for it. I’m already facing a jail sentence for my work as a journalist — that’s what my interrogators told me. If they catch me at the protests, I know I’ll go away for 15 years at least.

They almost got me the other day. I was trying to take a photo of a girl with long hair walking down the street, with the armed forces in the background. One of them stopped me and tried to take my phone. I turned and tried to run but he grabbed my backpack. I couldn’t leave it, as it had my notes and my laptop inside. But then, a crazy thing happened. The passing traffic stopped and men — ordinary men — leapt out of their cars, off their motorcycles and ran over to help me. “Let her go,” they shouted, pushing the officer off me.

That’s how these protests are different. They’re not divided by class or ethnicity or gender, as others were before. Mahsa Amini’s death touched so many people. She was only 22. People have told me: “She could have been my granddaughter, my sister, my friend.” They put themselves in her shoes. They feel like they’ve lost a loved one and that it could happen to them. Mahsa didn’t do anything wrong. And they killed her.

Everyone I know has taken part in the protests. Actors, teachers, we’re all united. Even in the rich areas of Tehran and the poor Kurdish cities, they are protesting for the same goal. Some of my friends have gone out to write slogans on the walls. Others are shouting them from their rooftops. Everyone is taking responsibility.

The armed forces are everywhere in the streets now, both in uniform and undercover. That’s what makes it so hard to document the protests. You never know if the guy chanting next to you is a member of the Revolutionary Guard in disguise. Everywhere on the streets you see women walking with their hair uncovered. Some of us let our scarves hang on our shoulders, like we used to do in cafés and restaurants. Others are even braver: they go out in jeans and a shirt, with no scarf at all. They are young, they are old. We see each other, we say hello and tell each other we look beautiful.

Women like us are illegal in the Islamic Republic. But we are not afraid. A friend was hit in the neck with buckshot at the protests, another in the head. Many more have been beaten and arrested.

There was a time when I thought we were the last generation to be interested in politics, that our children were interested only in TikTok and Instagram. I even caught myself saying, just a month ago, as I comforted a young woman who had been harassed by the police, that the Islamic Republic would continue to exist, so we should learn to live with it.

How wrong I was. These teenage girls are braver than we ever were. I went to see a friend’s daughter the other day. She’s 16 and until a week ago, she told me, she was afraid of speaking her mind.

Then she went to school and saw the bravery of her classmates as they raged against the teachers and tried to join the demonstrations. All the anger she felt — at the daily harassment, the indignity of being forced to wear a scarf and cloak in the 40C heat, the unending violence sanctioned by the state — spilled over.

When her teachers tried to stop her from walking out and joining the protests, she took a book from her bag and tore up the picture of the Supreme Leader on the front cover. “I started screaming at my head teacher, all the words I have been carrying since I was six years old,” she told me. “I started escaping the cage.”

She was tired, she told me, of living in constant fear. She was angry that our beautiful country was going to waste at the hands of a leader who cares only about power and money. But she is also proud, as am I, of our people, who are no longer afraid.

“Beat us, try to quiet us, shame us. We are no longer staying quiet,” she told me. “We are not going anywhere. It’s your turn to leave.

“The boys you said we have to hide our hair from have turned into men screaming for our freedom in the street. The girls you have tried to quiet have turned into women who are standing up to guards with guns, who you gave permission to shoot at children. You turned us into adults at 13, 14, 15 years old. We will sing and dance in our own streets freely.”

I am so proud of these girls and their bravery. We all are. One of my friends, who is a few years older than me, has been going to the protests each day. A week ago, the armed forces asked her to put on her headscarf. She said no. They beat her with their batons. I saw her feet and they were black with bruises.

She told me: “When I see this young generation, I get optimistic. Because of the Islamic Republic, I decided not to give birth. I prevented a life because of them. I think how one of these students could be my daughter, if they had let me, if I had thought that she could have a future.”

The state is afraid of us. They’re terrified of what we could achieve. I can see it in the way they pretend not to see me when I walk past them, my hair uncovered.

They fear what we’ll do when we win. During one of my interrogations, the officer told me that if the Islamic Republic collapsed, there would be chaos. “Chaos?” I said. “Just because I take off my headscarf doesn’t mean I’m going to start walking around in a bikini.”

They’re afraid of any change. They think that if they accept one change, everything will fall. I think it will. The support from around the world makes me optimistic. Courage is transferred from me, to you, to her. Still, I know the UK, the US and the West aren’t coming to save us. We all saw what happened in Afghanistan. This is our fight, our struggle.

For the first time, I feel hope around me in Iran. Everyone around me is at risk of being arrested. But everyone is optimistic. We’ll continue our fight until they accept to leave. I know we’ll win. Maybe not today or tomorrow. But we have started something that can’t be stopped.

And when the regime falls, I know the first thing I’ll do: I’ll walk down to the city centre, I’ll take off my scarf and I’ll dance, right there in the street.