Woman, Life, Freedom
In the beginning of 2022 we were asked to create a short animated-documentary clip aiming to shed light on the Iranian protests against the mandatory veil. Many women demonstrators have defiantly taken off their hijabs and burned them in bonfires or symbolically cut their hair in protest. Under the guidance of an Iranian group of women we recreated several situations they identified as daily oppression when challenging the long-lasting conservative Muslim law: from mild remarks on the street to violent attacks by undercover militia. We illustrated an acid attack and a young woman being violently arrested by the Morality police.
On 16 September 2022, a 22-year-old Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini was in fact taken by the Morality police during a protest and killed in custody of the Guidance Patrol in Tehran due to police brutality. Many people from all over the world reacted to Amini’s death, and sparked a series of anti-hijab protests across the country. The protests that followed with the signature slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom” resulted in an estimated 20 thousand people being arrested and 550 people killed as of 2023. In February 2024 a part of the arrested in connection with the Mahsa Amini protests were pardoned but the veil laws remain in place to this day. During the last Iranian elections on March 1 2024 voter turnout was at 40%, the lowest level since the country’s 1979 revolution (and 62% if compared to 2016). The low turnout is a result of the viral #VoteNoVote and #ElectionCircus campaigns and is a hopeful measure of slowly-changing public opinion.
The independent women-led organisation which commissioned the campaign preferred to remain anonymous.
© 2022 Animadocs
