Raihana M* was in her living room in the Afghan capital, Kabul, when she first heard of protests erupting across the border in neighbouring Iran following the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly breaching Iran’s strict dress code. 

The Afghan social worker saw footage of the protests in Iran on Manoto TV, a London-based Persian language TV station, and said she felt an immediate, almost physical, rush of solidarity for her Iranian sisters. 

“I was really shocked and sad. As an Afghan, as a woman, I felt solidarity because we are experiencing the same thing. Only it’s worse for women in Afghanistan,” she explained in a phone interview from Kabul. 

That was in late September, not long after 22-year-old Amini was declared dead by the Iranian authorities. Raihana then took to social media, watching clips of protests across Iranian cities and towns. 

Other Afghan women living under the Taliban regime were also doing the same. Within days, a group of around 30 Afghan women gathered outside the Iranian embassy in Kabul chanting, “Zan, zendagi, azadi!” (Women, life, freedom), echoing the protest cry from Iran. They also held banners proclaiming, “From Kabul to Iran, say no to dictatorship!”.

Taliban officials then moved in to break up the demonstration, firing into the air and threatening to hit the women with their rifle butts.  

Lina Qasimi, an Afghan teenager who has been unable to go to school since the Taliban shut down secondary schools, has also been keenly following the protests in Iran. “I feel very close to this. It’s really terrible. No one should be killed for just showing their hair. But in Afghanistan, it’s not just hair, it’s women. Just being a woman is a problem for the Taliban,” she said. 

With a 921 km border dividing the two countries, Tehran and Kabul have a complicated history of wars, border skirmishes, smuggling networks, migrations, and discrimination in Iran against Afghan refugees. But they also share cultural ties, common linguistic traditions, and centuries of empathy that is probably best described in the lyrics of revered Iranian songwriter, Bijan Taraghi, who famously wrote, “Though your child threw a stone at our window/It did not break our lasting bond”. 

‘Afghan women are really alone’ 

As protests spread across Iran, both Raihana and Qasimi were struck by the extraordinary scenes of Iranian men joining the women in their anti-regime demonstrations. “The difference is, in Iran, all the people are standing up. Iranian women and men are really protesting in unity,” noted Raihana. “In Afghanistan, it’s not like that – people are so afraid. Afghan women are really alone.” 

That’s true, says Tamim Asey, co-founder of the Kabul-based Institute for War and Peace Studies and a former Afghan deputy defence minister. “Iranian women have the support of men in considerable ways. Afghan women don’t have that. Afghan men have suffered 40 years of war, so much violence, so much killing. The Taliban are also putting tremendous pressure on the men. If some women protest, they find their husbands, fathers, brothers and arrest them,” he explained. 

Afghan women began protesting the week after the Taliban seized control of Kabul on August 15, 2021, despite the grave risk of confronting a movement of hardline Islamist male fighters.  

The crackdown has been brutal and extends to male relatives of ‘troublesome’ women, according to rights groups. In a report last week, the New York-based Human Rights Watch detailed the cases of three women, who were arrested with their husbands and children, separated under detention and severely tortured. The detained women included Tamana Paryani, who filmed herself pleading for help as the Taliban broke into her house at night in January after she joined a women’s protest demanding the right to education and work.

 

‘We are not allowed to do anything’ 

And yet, the women’s protests in Afghanistan have continued. Following an October 1 attack on an education centre in Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barachi neighbourhood, which killed more than 50 mostly female students, protests by women and girls erupted in several Afghan cities, including Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat and Bamiyan. 

But they failed to get the sort of media attention and solidarity displays that the Iranian protests have attracted across the world.

On Saturday, around 80,000 people from across Europe demonstrated in Berlin in solidarity with the protest movement in Iran. Global celebrities, including leading French actress Juliette Binoche, have filmed themselves cutting locks of hair in public displays of protest against Amini’s death in custody.

“The international support for Iranian women has been phenomenal. US President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, actors, designers, celebrities have all condemned the persecution and expressed support for the Iranian protesters. The same thing does not happen for Afghan women – even though they originally started the protest movement that had a spillover effect in Iran. And they raised their voices against a far more brutal, dogmatic regime,” said Asey. 

The international engagement in Afghanistan, followed by the disastrous fallout of the hasty US withdrawal, could account for the lack of global interest, according to experts. “Over the last 20 years, Western countries have supported Afghan women in various forms and forums. The West feels it’s done so much, now it’s time for Afghan women to take it on. In Iran, that support wasn’t there,” explained Asey. 

But for Afghan women, taking on the Taliban’s restrictive policies is a monumental task. 

The fear of crackdowns and surveillance have forced Qasimi and her friends to take to social media and avoid the streets. But even the online solidarity is restricted to “live stories” – which typically expire after 24 hours – and not “posts” that stay online until they are deleted.

“It’s the only way I can say anything. It’s too dangerous to post anything critical. The Taliban will find you and they can do anything. We are not allowed to do anything. We’re not allowed to go to school, even if we just go outside, we fear we may not come back home,” explained the Afghan teenager. 

At 26, Raihana, on the other hand, completed her education during the US intervention years. She is among the few, lucky women in the country to still have her job, at an international NGO. The Afghan aid worker did not want her real name or that of her employer revealed due to the security risks. And there are many. In the mornings, Raihana dons an abaya, an all-black robe worn in Gulf countries that has made its way to Afghanistan. Their office car, with female and male colleagues, takes different routes each day to avoid Taliban checkpoints as they make their way to work, offering essential humanitarian services that the Taliban fails to provide Afghans. 

The differences between the women-led protest movements in Afghanistan and Iran extend to the scope of their demands, according to Barnett Rubin, a leading Afghanistan expert and former special advisor to the late US Ambassador for Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke. “The Iranian demonstrations are centrally against enforcement of hijab and then more broadly “freedom.” Education of girls and women is a non-issue in Iran. In Afghanistan, women are protesting about issues of basic rights and survival and not, so far, about hijab,” explained Rubin in emailed comments to FRANCE 24. 

Spillover effect – or not 

From her home in Kabul, Raihana says she is closely monitoring the situation in Iran. “If the protests work, if the Iranian government makes changes, if the restrictions on hijab change, I think the Taliban will see it. They will learn that if they continue like this, it could happen here,” she said. 

But Asey is not as optimistic. “My assessment and reading of the situation is that the Taliban barely cares about the women’s movement in Iran. They’re not afraid of a spillover,” he maintained. 

As a former deputy defence minister, Asey explained that Kabul’s main concerns with Tehran are focused on border issues, including drug trafficking and migration. 

Protests in Iran have indeed spread to the impoverished province of Sistan-Baluchistan – which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan – including a September 30 “Black Friday” massacre, when Iranian security forces opened fire on protesters, killing at least 66 people.

But the unrest in the remote Iranian border province involves longstanding governance and religious rights issues between the predominantly Sunni Baloch ethnic group and Shiite authorities in Tehran, explained Asey.

Despite the odd border clashes and demonstrations over the mistreatment of Afghans in Iran, the Taliban have managed a working relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran since the August 2021 takeover of Afghanistan.  

Both administrations are wary of the West, particularly the US. When it comes to women’s rights, the situation in Iran may not be as bleak as in Afghanistan, but the two Islamic administrations are joined in their bid to silence female voices – and blame the West’s “corrupting influence” when that fails. 

“I understand that the Taliban and Iran have some connection. There are meetings, discussions between them,” said Raihana. “Also, the Taliban stopped the protest in support of Iranian women outside the Iranian embassy in Kabul. It shows some support for each other.” 

But Afghan women are also drawing moral support from their Iranian sisters across the border and are determined to keep up the pressure for their basic human rights. 

*Name changed to protect identity 

 

Sun Chunlan is a special case in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) galaxy: She is the only woman in the Politburo, the Beijing regime’s powerful executive body. But it’s not for long. Sun is expected to step down from her post during the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress, the weeklong, twice-a-decade meeting, which began on Sunday, October 16. At 72, China’s “Iron Lady” is past the usual retirement age of 68.

The nerve center of Chinese power could therefore be composed solely of men, aggravating a chronic problem of gender underrepresentation in the nation’s halls of power.

Since 2017, Sun has embodied the CCP’s image of a party unafraid to promote women to top positions. She holds the prestigious title of vice premier, one of only four in the 25-member Politburo.

‘Women hold up half the sky’, but men rule

Sun’s “Iron Lady” moniker has been reinforced over the past two years, since President Xi Jinping appointed her as the country’s top official overseeing China’s Covid-19 pandemic response.

She has been the enforcer of Xi’s “zero-Covid” policy – proof, if proof were needed, that the country’s only female vice premier enjoys the president’s complete confidence to manage one of the most serious health crises confronting the Chinese leader since he came to power in 2012.

But managing the controversial public health policy is not exactly a political gift. Some China experts believe Xi found in Sun an easy “zero-Covid” scapegoat to be sacrificed if his management of the pandemic becomes too contentious. The health dossier has also traditionally been entrusted to women in Communist China; one of Sun’s Politburo predecessors was Wu Yi, who had to deal with the 2003 SARS epidemic.

Nevertheless, Sun’s departure will leave a void in the party’s upper echelons. There are other female candidates for the coveted Politburo post, including Shen Yiqin, the only woman to serve as party general secretary of an entire province, Guizhou, in southern China. Shen also hails from the Bai ethnic minority, “which – cynically speaking – means she simultaneously checks the woman box and the ethnic minority box”, noted the China Project website.

But “nothing obliges the CCP to replace Sun Chunlan with another woman”, explained Valarie Tan from the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies (Merics). The likely absence of women in the next Politburo, to be unveiled during the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress, would not be surprising since Sun’s position represents the exception to the rule.

In theory, Communist China claims to be one of the most egalitarian regimes in the world. Schoolchildren across the country are familiar with founding father Mao Zedong’s famous “women hold up half the sky” quote reinforcing constitutional equal rights. “From the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the CCP has placed equality between women and men as one of the characteristics that distinguish the Communist state from the ‘old China’,” explained Cheng Li, from the Washington-based Brookings Institution, in a report on female representation in Chinese politics.

A very patriarchal party

But the reality is quite different for a country with around 703 million women, constituting 48.7 percent of the total population.

Since 1949, there have been only six women in the CCP Politburo. Three of them were the wives of the founders of Communist China. Among the more than 300 members of the Central Committee – who elect Politburo members and endorse their decisions – there are barely 30 women. In short, only “eight percent of the party’s leadership positions have been given to women”, noted Tan.

The Politburo – of which Sun is a member – in turn selects the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee. The current Standing Committee has seven members, none of them women.

This underrepresentation is not due to a lack of Chinese women choosing political careers. Between January 2020 and June 2021, for instance, nearly half of new party members were women.

The 20th Congress could have been the occasion to spearhead the fight against the political glass ceiling since the meeting provides an occasion for a major renewal of the party’s upper echelons. But the chances of significant change in female representation are slim.

For starters, the reasons for male domination in top political positions have not been questioned. The party’s executive positions are often reserved for “leaders who had held managerial roles at state-owned enterprises, ministries and regional governments, positions for which women were often bypassed”, noted Minglu Chen, from the University of Sydney’s China Studies Centre, in the South China Morning Post.

Secondly, promotion within the CCP is “entirely based on factional ties rather than individual merits”, Bo Zhiyue, an expert in Chinese elite politics based in New Zealand, told the South China Morning Post. “This has created a very helpless situation because it’s a selection, not an election,” he added.

To rise to the top of the political ladder, aspirants need the right support, and women often have less direct access to those few party figures who can promote their protégés.

Xi is also no champion of women in politics. He embodies “the CCP’s very patriarchal approach to society”, argues Tan. The end of the one-child policy in 2021 was an opportunity for the Chinese president to insist on the importance of “traditional family values”. He has even initiated a campaign to exalt “the unique physical and mental traits [of women] for giving birth and caring for newborns”. In other words, the Chinese leader would rather see women at home than in the office.

A demographic crisis, but women don’t have a say

This lack of women in leadership has important economic and social consequences, noted Tan. “One of the root causes of the current demographic crisis in China is the underrepresentation of women in important positions,” she explained. “The problems of almost half the population are not, or barely, represented in the CCP.”

And so, the incentive to have children is essentially “money distributed to families, without taking into account the deeper reasons why Chinese women do not want to have more children”, explained Tan.

Chinese authorities are also not severe enough when it comes to tackling domestic abuse and violence against women in general, noted Tan. The impunity that some powerful men involved in sexual assault scandals seem to enjoy – such as former vice premier Zhang Gaoli, who is accused of rape by tennis player Peng Shuai – reinforces a “climate that does not make women want to have children”, said Tan.

Communist party honchos who have been setting priorities in recent years to encourage people to have more children “could have benefitted from conversations with women on the Standing Committee”, noted the China Project, referring to the tiny group of Politburo Standing Committee members selected by the 25-member Politburo. “Too bad there weren’t any.”

This article is a translation from the original in French.

 

 

The circumstances around Amini’s death in custody remain vague with her family and Iranian authorities offering contradictory versions.

The 22-year-old Iranian woman died on September 16, three days after her arrest by Iran’s notorious morality police for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

An official Iranian forensic investigation found Amini had died of a longstanding illness rather than reported beatings.

Her family has denied the official version, stressing that their daughter was in perfect health and had died of a violent blow to the head. They have filed a complaint against security officers involved in her arrest and detention.

Amini’s death sparked mass protests spearheaded by women taking to the streets chanting, “Zan, zendegi, azadi!” – women, life, freedom.

Young women, university students and even schoolgirls have since taken off their hijabs and faced off with security forces in the biggest wave of social unrest to grip Iran in almost three years.

At least 108 people, including 28 children, have been killed and hundreds more detained and held mostly in adult prisons, according to human rights groups.

The unrest has been particularly marked in Amini’s western home province of Kurdistan as well as in the southeastern city of Zahedan, where demonstrations have erupted against a police officer accused of rape in a separate case.

Khamenei accuses ‘enemies’ of stoking ‘riots

Gunshots were fired as Iranian security forces confronted protesters in the cities of Isfahan and Karaj and in Amini’s hometown Saqez, in videos shared by two Norway-based human rights organisations.

“Death to the dictator,” shouted female students who had defiantly taken off their mandatory hijab headscarves as they marched down a Tehran street, in a video verified by AFP.

Shots were heard in Isfahan amid the “nationwide protests and strikes”, Iran Human Rights (IHR) said of a video it tweeted, and in Saqez, according to the Kurdish rights group Hengaw, which reported that later “the security forces fled”.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday again accused Iran’s “enemies” of stoking “street riots”.

“The actions of the enemy, such as propaganda, trying to influence minds, creating excitement, encouraging and even teaching the manufacture of incendiary devices are now completely clear,” he said.

The ISNA news agency reported a heavy security presence in the capital and demonstrations, including at Tehran University where police intervened “to restore order, without resorting to violence”.

‘Bloody crackdown’ feared

Activists in Tehran have called for protesters to turn out “in solidarity with the people of Sanandaj and the heroic people of Zahedan”.

“We don’t want spectators. Come and join us,” a group of mainly young women outside Tehran’s Azad University sang in IHR footage verified by AFP.

A man who asked not to be identified told the BBC: “The atmosphere is quite tense and yet it is exciting. People are hopeful this time and we hope that a real change is just around the corner. I don’t think people are willing to give up this time. 

“You can hear some sort of protest everywhere, almost every night. That feels good, that feels really good.”

IHR said the security forces had so far killed at least 108 people, and at least another 93 people in Zahedan, while warning of an “impending bloody crackdown” in Kurdistan.

It also said workers had joined protest strikes this week at the Asalouyeh petrochemical plant in the southwest, Abadan in the west and Bushehr in the south.

In its widening crackdown, Iran has blocked access to social media, including Instagram and WhatsApp, and launched a campaign of mass arrests.