Santa Barbara’s Iranian Community Protests for Women’s Rights

Santa Barbara’s Iranian community has been protesting for at least the past week — with daily demonstrations at the UC Santa Barbara campus organized by the Iranian Academic Community (IAC-UCSB)  — and on Saturday, the group took over the corner of State Street and Cabrillo Boulevard to join in worldwide protests for women’s rights in Iran.

Members of IAC-UCSB, Iranian-Americans for Justice & Human Rights, and supporters of the local Iranian-American community crowded along the grass in front of Stearns Wharf, singing songs and sharing testimony to spread awareness of an ongoing humanitarian crisis in Iran. The worldwide protests were heavily sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini — who was arrested and killed in police custody in Tehran in September for failing to properly wear a hijab — but according to those who have lived under the Islamist regime over the past few decades, the battle for control over women’s bodies has been a struggle for years, dating back to the 1979 revolution.

In Santa Barbara, as in protests around the world, women have taken to the streets, burning their hijabs or chopping off their hair in symbolic acts of protests.