Digital Embodiments of the Women’s Protest in Iran

• In Event: Elites and Religion: Offline and Online

Abstract

On September 16, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman named Mahsa “Jina” Amini died after detainment by morality police for her alleged improper hijab. Mahsa Amini’s death and the perceived cover-ups by Iranian state officials for the police’s role in her killing have sparked feminist protests within Iran. While thousands of courageous individuals have taken to the streets to voice their anger at these injustices, millions more have been amplifying them online with infographics, memes, and hashtags. On sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, the hashtag #mahsaamini was tweeted and retweeted over 250 million times in Persian and over 50 million in English in the first month following Amini’s death. While in the West, the support for the feminist protest in Iran is overwhelming, it is not the case in the Muslim World. The protests in Iran attracted reactionary tweets accusing them of being anti-Islam and anti-society. For instance. Iraqi Shia cleric Ayad Jamal al-Dinn attacked the protests on his Twitter account, labeling the protesting Iranian women “anti-hijab whores” who seek to destroy Islam and culture. We will compile a database of social media posts relating to the protests and responses to these posts. We will analyze this data looking for how the veil, considered an important marker of Islam in all Muslim countries, was discussed on social media in response to the feminist protest in Iran. The responses to the digital artwork and data being disseminated through social media offer great insight into how religious debates, especially about feminist issues, are framed and conducted. Social media can be a double-edged sword helping promote the protest and creating a space for censorship and backlash.

Authors

• Anwar Mhajne, Stonehill College

• Leah Tabor, Stonehill College

• Brian Traves