'They risk everything': Iranians are not only asking for change, they are making the change'

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00:00It's time now for a look back at what's been happening in Iran.

00:04It's been more than two years since the Women, Life, Freedom protests.

00:10Franco-Afghan journalist Mortaba Behouzi had been following them and had been able, undercover

00:19at times, to speak with ordinary Iranians.

00:24He's compiled this report.

00:28It's another day on the streets of Tehran.

00:31But behind the scenes, society is changing.

00:34For the past two years, a wave of defiance has been spreading across the country.

00:39Sogand, a musician and performer, defies the laws by singing without a hijab.

00:44A simple yet bold act in a country where religious laws are strictly enforced.

00:50For the past ten years, underground concerts have been on the rise.

00:58I know how they're organized because it was what I fought for.

01:03I organized concerts for female singers.

01:09Under the current regime, they can't obtain permits and struggle to find venues to perform

01:13in.

01:16And I provided them with that opportunity.

01:23Like many artists, Sogand shares videos of herself singing on social media.

01:29She was emboldened in December when she saw a video of a famous Iranian singer step on

01:35stage without a hijab and perform a concert.

01:40Look, your muscles are working here.

01:50Her determination has inspired many young women to learn to sing and express themselves

01:55freely.

01:56Today, Sogand shares her passion by offering private lessons, both online and in person.

02:06When I watched Parastu Ahmadi's online concert, I was deeply moved from start to finish.

02:14Even now, I still feel very emotional about it.

02:17That was something we hadn't seen in years, something we worked so hard for.

02:21Her performance has immense significance.

02:24Since the woman life freedom movement, perspectives on women have changed.

02:28People respect us, they respect our choices.

02:30They applaud us.

02:31They say bravo for what we do, for our courage.

02:37They also congratulate me for supporting my students and for the lessons I give.

02:43Looking ahead, I have a lot of hope.

02:45I see the change, even if it may take years in our society.

02:49But I have faith in the future.

02:56A few kilometers away, Majid runs an underground theater workshop.

03:01Until the age of 33, his name was Sarah.

03:05As an actor and transgender activist, he fights on two fronts, one of identity and one of

03:11artistic expression.

03:13In Iran, the regime enforces a strict binary norm.

03:17While gender transition is legal, it requires medical approval and trans individuals still

03:22face deep societal stigmas.

03:28The regime's view of sexual minorities and trans people is overwhelmingly negative,

03:37especially towards trans women.

03:40In this patriarchal society, they're often degraded, associated with prostitution, and

03:46reduced to their sexuality.

03:54Majid has also created an underground network to help the LGBTQ plus community shield themselves

04:01from a system that condemns them.

04:05His living room is where he holds secret gatherings, which have become a sanctuary of freedom.

04:11It's here where he tries to combat discrimination and misinformation.

04:39In some hospitals, they give us electroshock therapy, like they did to me three times.

04:47They also give us medication, convince us that we're sick.

04:53I have to educate young people.

04:55A psychologist shouldn't even have the authority to decide if we are trans or not.

05:01We're not sick.

05:04In Iran, resistance can be done with protests on the streets or secretly in homes through

05:09music and the theater.

05:12For Sogand, Majid, and many others, being free to express themselves is an everyday

05:18act of resistance.

05:22And joining us is Mortaza Behboudi, the Franco-Afghan journalist.

05:26Mortaza, your last trip to Iran was in 2022, at the height of the Women Life Freedom protests.

05:36You have compiled what you found in a book that's published in French called Women Life

05:42Freedom, Femme Vie Liberté in French, to be translated into English?

05:49Yeah, soon.

05:50Hopefully.

05:51Soon.

05:52Okay.

05:53You've not been back since.

05:54So to film the report that we just saw, talk us through it.

05:58How did we just see those recent images?

06:00Of course.

06:01We saw that the Iranian young people, now they are forming different resistance.

06:07And since the movement, they cannot protest anymore in the streets, but they are making

06:14that differently.

06:15And this, everything, going to the street with a scarf is the act of resistance, making,

06:21organizing this clandestine parties, going to the cafes.

06:27Your book, by the way, reads a bit like an Iran by night kind of tale.

06:30Exactly.

06:31And for myself, my duty as a journalist is also to find a way.

06:34I cannot go to the ground.

06:36I cannot go to Iran or other countries and war, but I can find my way how to report on.

06:42And what I did, I contacted them.

06:44I have a lot of contact because I grew up in Iran.

06:46Then I asked them if you can film for me with this angle and send it to me through the,

06:53of course, the signal and the other solution of the video transfer.

06:59And I received this and I made editing from here and I could understand it because I speak

07:04the language and I made this report.

07:06And how was their filming?

07:08These are not professional.

07:09No, I teach them actually from here.

07:11I teach them how to film, how to, the angle, how to film it that we can also not showing

07:16the hide identity.

07:17Of course, it was very important now from here to how to dig, how to investigate, how

07:22to also protect our sources.

07:24And yeah, I passed many days to talking to them in Persian, helping them how to film.

07:30Even with their faces blurred, is it still a risk?

07:34We did the double, everything.

07:35We blurred them, double checked.

07:38We changed the, of course, the voice.

07:41But yeah, but now we did the maximum to not be identified in Iran.

07:45But unfortunately in Iran, they are buying this surveillance cameras in the street to

07:50identify the women with a scarf and sending the fine to their dorms.

07:54I know many girls, students, they received their fine there.

07:58Because at one point there was an image, you blurred the faces of women who-

08:02Was double the blur.

08:04At one point there was a woman just walking down the street in the other direction who

08:09presumably had nothing to do with the video at all, who also was not wearing a scarf.

08:13Yeah, because-

08:14What does that tell you?

08:15Because it's true.

08:16You see that, as we show you in the book, that even that some women, they were wearing

08:20scarf, but they taking the hands of the daughters, they are not wearing the scarf.

08:25And we see this in Iran, many, many, before was during the movement, Women, Life, Freedom,

08:30we see this in the big cities like Tehran and Isfahan, but now they are everywhere.

08:35These women, they are everywhere in Iran, not wearing a scarf and showing the regime

08:40that yeah, we continue protest, but differently.

08:45And also the regime cannot apply their own law, which is hijab and chastity, that it's

08:51still that the hijab police, which we call it, and the basijis, they're also deploying

08:57that.

08:58The morality police.

08:59The morality police, but also this paramilitia, they're volunteers.

09:02They have these offices in each corner in the university, of course, next to the mosque,

09:09everywhere in the different districts in order to identify these women.

09:12But still the regime cannot, of course, arrest everyone.

09:16They can't arrest everyone, but they have been able to put a lid on the protests.

09:21Unfortunately, they executed at least 975 people last year.

09:27In only one month, in December, 138 people were executed, among them also foreigners.

09:35And yeah, Iranian regime continue to, this death penalty seems to oppress the resistance,

09:45of course.

09:46And we heard in that report, the woman was talking about the underground music scene

09:50and how she's aware of what's going on where.

09:53Is that underground music scene as alive as it was when you were there?

09:58Because it was a bit of exuberance when you went undercover.

10:01It was the height of the movement in 2022.

10:04Does that still exist?

10:06You know that before of the Women's Life Freedom, there were no clandestine theaters, for example.

10:13But everything doubled up now.

10:15Since the two years and a half, the Women's Life Freedom, everything doubled.

10:19Every night in Tehran now, there are 10 times more of these parties, clandestine parties,

10:26they're organizing and they're hidden.

10:28And also, we have these trilogram groups, I'm still in it, that I get, I receive invitations

10:34to coming to these parties, they're organizing.

10:36And also these meetings, conferences, the theaters, they are now, because they want

10:40to play as an actor without a scarf.

10:43They want to chant, they want to play music, sing without a scarf.

10:48And we have this more and more, hundreds of, after the Paris to Ahmadi, this woman that

10:52we showed, that she's still waiting for the judgment from the court in Iran, that she

11:00sang, of course, and she was arrested.

11:03But we see hundreds and hundreds of women singing without a scarf on the social media.

11:08They're showing their face and they don't have a fear of the regime.

11:14And the movement of 2022, it was something that was national.

11:22It was all social classes.

11:25It was all ethnic backgrounds inside of Iran.

11:30As we were saying earlier, there's since been the crackdown.

11:33And the country's been in a state of suspense, you might say, because you have an aging,

11:42the clerics who are aging, who are at the helm.

11:44What are they telling you in terms of what their state of mind is, the people there right

11:48now?

11:49They are not asking only for change.

11:52They are making the change.

11:54Since the beginning of the Women's Life Freedom, they risk everything.

11:57They're ready to risk everything to go even to prison, see even executed people and many

12:03young people.

12:04You see, you side with it too much, with many actors, with many celebrities were arrested

12:08and freed because of the international sanctions.

12:13And also we side here after this act of Ahu Darya'i, who has lost her clothes in the University

12:21of Azad, Islamic Azad.

12:23We side every day.

12:24But the demand is to see the country asking for the secularization, that the Sharia, that

12:33there are not going to be any Islamic law involving the country.

12:39But these young people, they're not behind this slogan, we hear it, Women's Life Freedom,

12:45the chance of this resistance.

12:47The whole country is behind this, not only young people.

12:51I want to thank you so much for being with us, Mortaza Beboudi.

12:54And again, that report on our website, France24.com.

12:57Thanks for joining us.

12:59Stay with us.

13:00There's more to come, more news.

13:01And in the France 24 debate, it's a Germany under pressure that's going to the polls on

13:05Sunday domestically and also from foreign actors.

13:09As they're meddling on the part of Russia, but also now the United States with the Trump

13:14administration backing the far right.

13:16That's coming up in the France 24 debate.

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