Five ways of life in Iran that changed after 50 days of mass anti-government protests

The demonstrations that began in Iran 50 days ago - a form of protest against violence against women - have been the most serious hurdle to the country's rule since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The chaos began on Sept. 16 in response to the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was already detained by personality police in Tehran. Amini is considered to be violating Iran's strict provisions requiring women to cover their hair with a headscarf or hijab.

Since the deaths, demonstrators have continued to protest and resist the deadly retaliatory treatment of security forces - the Human Rights Activists' Information Office (HRANA) website claims 298 people have died and more than 14,000 were secured in protests in 129 cities on November 2.

Some in Iran explained to the BBC that the wave of protests has brought a meaningful shift to the daily lives of citizens in five special steps.

Removing the hijab

In recent weeks, many Iranian women have continued to violate the provisions regarding the cover of their heads, such as women who are seen climbing over trash cans and cars and waving their hijabs in the air.

Social media is filled with women who appear in public without a hijab, counting popular figures such as artist Fatemeh Motamed-Arya.

This ratio of public uprisings has not occurred initially in the history of this Islamic Republic.

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Some posts on social media even showed images of young Iranian women with open heads standing near security forces, although the ruling faction insisted that the terms remain the same.

"Opening the hijab still violates the law," Ali Khanmohammadi, Iran's morality police spokesman, told an information site on Oct. 30.

However, that doesn't prevent Iranian women from always fighting the ban.

A 69-year-old woman explained to the BBC that since the protests began, she often left home without wearing a hijab.

"One day I was walking on the curb and I heard the sound of a car horn from behind. I went back and saw the young woman in the car without a hijab," said the woman, who asked not to be named.

"He gave me a peck symbol and made a sign of victory. I do the same! In forty days, the country has been different for more than forty years."

Demands on walls and roads

The current protests in Iran look real compared to the initial chaos because there was a "fight on the walls of the public".

Watching graffiti slogans nowadays is becoming commonplace just as shown in videos on social media where people record themselves writing on walls.

The majority of the jargon targeted ayatollah Khamenei's top leader - an escalation of language rarely seen at first - and attacked Iran's theocratic government by showing a secular character in protests.

But real fighting over public spaces is taking place on the street: demonstrators are already downplaying provisions prohibiting demos, dropping or destroying government billboards with their own images or sentences.

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"Some people have already created temporary liberation zones where girls and women dance as crowds cheer, where some people shout slogans demanding an end to persecution as they meet and discuss the direction the movement needs to take," Iranian writer and activist Alex Shams told the BBC.

"The protests already exist as one of the most important spaces for Iranians to think about the future of the other."

The abilities of the young lineup

School students were counted among the very active ranks in the protests and HRANA claimed that more than 47 children had died during the protests.

The dead schoolboy has become a special symbol of the demo. Some names like Nika Shakarami and Sarina Esmailzadeh have become famous hashtags and their images are widely shown in graffiti.

This is the first time Iran's young forces have played a key role in the protests.

On social media, many videos of schoolchildren (especially women) shouting anti-government slogans, tearing up images of top leader Ayatollah Khamenei or swapping some of the photos in schoolbooks for images of some of the people killed during the demonstrations.

One video trending on social media depicted schoolchildren yelling at a member of the security forces who came to their school as a speaker - they explained to the officer you were "going the wrong way".

The appearance of conquering feelings of fear

On October 29 Hossein Salami, chief Adjutant of the Revolution gave a warning to demonstrators.

"Can't go down the street! It's the day of the end of the chaos," Salami told government media.

However, on a similar date there were more and more reports of protests and clashes with the security forces.

BBC Persia finds many narratives about some people rebelling in the face of violent harsh treatment that has never been seen initially in such a ratio.

One of them, a young woman who did not want to be named, explained that she had left the baby with her mother to go to the demo.

"I'm scared, but I'm obliged to do it to make a better future for my child."

Faravaz Favardini, an Iranian-based vocalist and activist based in Germany, believes that citizens' anger over the current situation in Iran has given a strong moment in protest.

"Everything becomes more expensive, there is some repression," Favardini said.

"After what happened to Mahsa Amini, some people learned that even those who did not participate in politics could be killed for nothing. I think it makes some people strive for desire."

Union

The real character of these protests is how they seem to have brought to life some other part of Iranian society, in contrast to its original movement.

The 2009 protests after the presidential election results were held by the middle class and the 2019 resistance saw the majority of poor people protest fuel prices.

However, this chaos has led to a diverse line of diverse ethnic Iranians marching together and reflected in existing slogans.

In the first protest after the death of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurd, showed jargon with her native language "Jin, Jiyan, Azadi" (woman, life and freedom in Kurdish) to the audience.

Today the jargon has a versus Farsi language, the most spoken language in Iran, and with Azeri language.

Alex Shams explained that the administration's claim that protests could result in ethnic separatism and civil war in Iran has not succeeded in shaking this unity.

"The togetherness of the Iranian people from diverse backgrounds has been at the center of the protest moment and has brought down the constraints of fear and doubt. When the government claims that the protests are against religion, people from religious and non-religious backgrounds have stood together," he added.

The initial movement did not succeed in bringing about a meaningful shift in Iran, but Shams believes this time is likely to be different.

"The last few weeks have been nerve-wrackingly changing people's thinking about what's possible. And that's a win," Shams related.

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