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Today marks the 3 year anniversary of [[link removed]] Mahsa/Jina Amini [[link removed]] ’s [[link removed]] killing in morality police custody and birth of Iran’s Women Life Freedom movement.
Inside Iran, civil society keeps the movement alive, from labor unions to feminist collectives, and continues to insist on a future where equality, justice, and self-determination are non-negotiable. These demands are no longer whispers on the margins; they have entered the fabric of Iranian life.
This struggle is not just met with repression by authorities inside Iran – it has also faced fresh assaults from outside that we as Iranian Americans must confront.
The message of “Woman, Life, Freedom” was violently co-opted to launch a war on Iran that killed and wounded thousands of Iranian civilians. Liberation cannot be delivered by warplanes; it is built from the ground up, by those who risk everything to demand justice.
Meanwhile, our government has banned and arrested hundreds of Iranians in the U.S. who are now being held in ICE detention facilities and face deportation. We have been in contact with at least one Iranian asylum seeker who suffered a grievous eye injury from security forces in the 2022 protests and yet was detained by ICE and deported back to Iran.
As Iranian Americans with a voice here in the U.S., we must do more with our power to stand up to those who would exploit the suffering and co-opt the self determination of the Iranian people to advance their own violent agendas and undermine the goals of Women, Life, Freedom.
Today, we honor Mahsa Jina Amini and the hundreds of others killed in the uprising that bears her name. We honor the women still imprisoned and the families still grieving. And we recommit to supporting Iranians on their own terms – not through war, not through deportations, but by amplifying their demands for dignity, justice, and freedom. Woman, Life, Freedom is not a slogan for states or actors with ulterior motives to co-opt. It is a promise the people of Iran continue to keep alive.
For additional information on the Woman, Life, Freedom protests and the human rights situation in Iran, see the following resources:
* Timeline of the First Three Months of the Mahsa Movement [[link removed]]


* 2022 Statement on the Killing of Mahsa Amini [[link removed]]


* NIAC’s Human Rights Tracker [[link removed]]


* A Snapshot of NIAC’s Human Rights Advocacy [[link removed]]


Thank you,
Jamal Abdi NIAC President[[link removed]]unsubscribe: [link removed]