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EDITORIAL: Western liberals need to meaningfully support Iran protests

A woman gestures during a protest against the Islamic regime of Iran and the death of Mahsa Amini in front of the Iranian Embassy in Madrid, Oct. 6, 2022.
A woman gestures during a protest against the Islamic regime of Iran and the death of Mahsa Amini in front of the Iranian Embassy in Madrid, Oct. 6, 2022. Photo by Juan Medina /REUTERS

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada supports the ongoing struggle of women in Iran for human rights, a global leader of the protests says western liberals have undermined the cause by condemning any criticism of Islam as “Islamophobia.”

Iranian-born journalist, author and women’s rights activists Masih Alinejad, who now lives in the U.S., said she has little hope western countries will meaningfully support the protests.

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She didn’t single out anyone by name, but she might as well have been talking about the Trudeau government, given its obsession with condemning Islamophobia, when she was asked by Bill Maher on Real Time with Bill Maher why liberals are “moronic” in failing to condemn state-sanctioned misogyny in Iran.

“It just breaks my heart because for years and years we have been warning them about the dangers of (Iran’s) morality police,” said Alinejad, author of The Wind in My Hair: My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran, who wears a flower in her free-flowing hair as a symbol of defiance against Islamic regimes requiring women to cover their hair in public.

“I grew up in a country where I was told if you show your hair, you’re going to go to jail, you will receive lashes, you will get killed, but here they tell me, ‘Shhh! If you talk about this you’re going to cause Islamophobia,’” Alinejad said.

“Phobia is irrational, but believe me my fear and the fear of millions of Iranian women and Afghanistan (women) is rational.”

Alinejad criticized defenders of Islam in the west who “speak perfect English” but have never lived under sharia laws in countries like Iran and Afghanistan, as well as “western feminists who came to my country, wore hijabs” and “bowed to the Taliban” in Afghanistan, without protesting their treatment of women.

  1. People attend a protest in solidarity with the women in Iran, following the death of Mahsa Amini, in Toronto, Sept. 19, 2022 in this screen grab obtained from social media video obtained by Reuters.

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  2. Members of the Iranian community and their supporters rally in solidarity with protesters in Iran, after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in police custody for allegedly improperly wearing a hijab, in Ottawa, Sept. 25, 2022.

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Protests led by women in Iran ignited following the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, while in custody after she was arrested by the morality police for allegedly breaking Iran’s law requiring women to wear head coverings.

The Trudeau government has announced new sanctions on members of Iran’s morality police and its internal security service, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but has opposed calls by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre to declare the IRGC a terrorist organization.