You try to enter the mind of someone who does something that no one else would do under the given circumstances – an act that leads them to be called a hero.
In this case, we’re looking into the mind and soul of Ahoo Daryaei, who, when confronted by the morality police about how she wore her hijab, responded by removing her clothes down to her underwear.
Was it courage or desperation? Or perhaps both, in an explosive combination within her soul? Did she believe that responding to the morality police’s authoritarianism in this way would achieve some kind of change?
Someone born in a country governed by Islamic law has seen what happened to other women who dared to resist submission (the women’s revolution following Mahsa Amini’s death in September 2022 – who was arrested for violating the dress code – left over 500 dead). It would be naive to think her fate would be any different. Yet she did it anyway. She removed her clothes in front of the police and walked defiantly before them.
To the outside world, she was hailed as a hero. In her homeland, her family and university authorities rushed to claim – obviously trying to save her – that she had mental health issues. Three days later, with no news of what had happened to her, the Iranian government announced that Ahoo had been transferred to a treatment centre. “We’re viewing this matter through a social lens and are seeking to resolve this student’s problems as those of a troubled individual,” the government spokesperson said in their first official response to the incident.
“When I protested against mandatory hijab, after security forces arrested me, my family was pressured to declare me mentally ill”, said women’s rights activist Azam Zangravi, speaking from Canada where she now lives after leaving Iran following a three-year prison sentence for removing her headscarf during a protest in 2018. “My family didn’t do it, but many families do, believing it’s the best way to protect their loved ones. This is how the Islamic Republic tries to discredit women, by questioning their mental health”, she added.
So, heroine or disturbed individual? For those in power, especially authoritarian regimes, it’s preferable to label them disturbed. For her, death is the same even if she remains alive. For everyone else, she’s yet another symbol.
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