Girls like me will change Iran. This is a revolution

On the first morning at school after the protests started, I was sitting at the back of the class when a group of girls came up to me. They told me they were planning something: at breaktime, they were going to take their headscarves off.

This is a big deal. The headscarf is part of our school uniform. We have to wear it wrapped really tight around our face and neck, even in the 40-degree heat. If we took it off we’d be in huge trouble.

But I didn’t need to think twice. I cried so much when I heard that Mahsa Amini had been killed by the morality police. I wanted to do something to support the protests. I told them I was in.

That breaktime I walked into the playground, absolutely terrified. I’d taken off my scarf, but I was holding it in my hand because I was so scared. Then I saw that no one, absolutely no one, had it on. It was crazy. I’d never seen anything like it before. The principal came and screamed at us, but no one reacted.

Then it started. Girls began tearing down the pictures of [Ayatollah] Khomeini [the former supreme leader] that hang in every classroom. The teachers played the Quran out of the speakers to try to stop us, and it wasn’t enough. They played the national anthem and nobody sang it. Nobody stood up, nobody clapped.

At that point I realised it was actually happening. I was so scared, but then I saw how brave my classmates were, and that gave me strength.

I’m 16 years old and I’ve been raised in a country that treats me with violence and disrespect. My friends and I are angry. We want change, and neither the school nor the police can stop us.

There have been protests in Iran before, but this time it is different. It’s no longer a protest. It’s a revolution.

We go to our classes, then after the school day is over we go out to the rallies. We don’t wear headscarves, but we wear masks so we can’t be identified by the police. I’m a jewellery person, I always wear rings and necklaces, but I have to take them off so I can’t be recognised, and I wear a hoodie over my uniform.

When we walk to the protests, we pass by the security guards they’ve posted outside the school. They don’t say a single thing to us because they’re scared. I mean, they have guns and everything, but they are still scared to speak to us. That’s crazy to me.

More than half of the school is taking part in the protests, or if they’re not participating they’re supporting us in spirit. They’re against the Islamic Republic, but they’re scared and they don’t want to do anything that might get them in trouble. I respect that. I also respect people who are religious – there are a lot of them who are against the Islamic Republic.

We have two teachers who are with us and who help us. Some of the others are really pro-regime. One of them told my friend: “I hope you’re the next Mahsa.” How could she say that? How could she be that cruel? She’s telling her: “I hope you die.”

They threaten us all the time. They say that they’ll expel us and we won’t be able to get a proper education, and no other school will take us. Once they threatened to have us arrested.

You see people getting hurt a lot at the rallies. When I see a girl being beaten, even if it’s someone I don’t know, my heart shatters. I would rather it was me being beaten.

I’m scared for my friends, my family too. My mum goes out to the protests. You have no idea how scary it is when I call her and she doesn’t answer. I tremble, I start shaking and I panic. Every day when I get home I call every one of my classmates: are you OK? Are you safe?

The violence is getting worse every day. But I see people being the bravest version of themselves. And I see how they always have each other’s backs. At a protest the other day, I fell and I hit my head on a rock. This girl who didn’t even know me came and helped me, and gave me water.

So many of my male friends are protesting too. I love them like my brothers. They’re always trying to help us, to protect us.

The Islamic Republic says that if men and women spend time together they’ll do immoral things. But I think they’re the really sick ones.

It’s crazy to me how far the regime will try to go to stop us. At first it was just beating and shooting with plastic bullets. Now they’re using real ones.

I can’t believe some people are still silent about this.

I don’t want to say if I’ve been hurt at the protests or not, because my mum will kill me. She goes to the protests too, but we don’t go together. It’s to keep me safe, because she goes to the areas where there’s really a lot of violence.

The reason the regime is so scared of us is because they know it’s different this time. They know we’re different. They know we’ll change the system. Because it’s not 40 years ago. We can speak English. We know social media. We know how to connect with the outside world. We’re not silent. If we disagree with something, we’ll say it.

As a woman in Iran you don’t have any rights at all. My dad died when I was young and they won’t give my mum the right to control anything in my life because she’s a woman. They gave my rights to my uncle. I’ve never left this country, even on holiday, because my uncle doesn’t let me. He won’t even let me have my passport. It’s like he owns me and he has the right to not let me go anywhere.

If there are any 16-year-olds reading this in the UK, here’s what I want to say: please be our voice; we don’t have the internet. And also just be grateful, because the most simple thing, the bare minimum of freedom, we don’t have it.                                                                                            

Even if the protests stop, nothing will be the same again. They’ve showed us the worst of themselves: the raping, the killing. But they haven’t seen the worst of us. We’ll keep going.

I try to be brave, but it’s exhausting. Sometimes I think: how much longer is this going to last? How much longer will I have to keep being brave? And the answer is always as long as it takes.

We’ve always been told: you teenagers do nothing, you just sit in your room on your phone. You’re lazy, you’re dramatic. You won’t end up anywhere. I just think, look at me now.

I know inside we’re all scared. But on the outside I never show it. People are dying on the streets, losing their lives for our freedom. I personally am prepared to give my all for this.

For the first time ever, I feel like I have a purpose, and some hope. Like a string of lights in a room full of darkness.

Rara Yegane, not her real name, is a 16-year-old pupil in a secondary school in Tehran. She told her story to Louise Callaghan, Middle East Correspondent