“Being a woman in Iran means beginning an endless struggle from the very moment you are born,” according to Kosar Eftekhari.
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Sunday, Eftekhari, who lives in Germany, said she was aware of that from the moment she was forced to wear the chador (Islamic covering) at eight years old.
Eftekhari eventually left Iran after being shot in the eye by a pellet fired by regime security forces for protesting against the brutal murder of 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian girl Mahsa Amini.
“A country ruled by a misogynistic and anti-human regime called the Islamic Republic is not a place where being a woman is easy,” she said.
Until the age of 18, Eftekhari lived in Mamqan, a small town in the Mamqan District in the East Azerbaijan province, “where the black chador for women was not a choice but an unwritten obligation.”
While the majority of women were never brave enough to remove the covering, she had rejected it, even though it made her “the subject of attention in the alleys and streets.”
Eftekhari said she received her strength and bravery from her mother, who fought to be a working woman despite the social pressure and legal discrimination pushing her into the role of housewife.
Eftekhari knew she had to act after security forces brutally murdered Amini
Eftekhari’s love of theater took her from her small town to Tehran, where the regime’s security forces are most concentrated. Despite this, she knew she had to act after security forces brutally murdered Amini for the simple crime of not wearing a head covering properly.
“I was certain that I was in danger,” Eftekhari said, describing the reality faced by those who participated in the Women, Life, Freedom movement protests in 2022. “I was fighting with empty hands, armed only with my voice, against heavily armed agents of the Islamic Republic.”
“The Islamic Republic was spraying bullets at and killing my unarmed fellow citizens,” she said. “I expected either to be killed by the bullets of the Islamic Republic or for us, the people of Iran, to win in the streets and witness the fall of the Islamic Republic. Or I thought that even if I were not killed, I would certainly be wounded by the agents of the regime. But until that day, I did not know that the Islamic Republic also shoots pellets into people’s eyes.”
Even though she had already spent six days in the national security detention center for participating in the demonstrations, she continued to attend the protests after her release, Eftekhari said.
“Even the smallest gathering, just four people standing together, was enough for the security forces to attack,” she said. “They beat people brutally with batons simply for standing together and talking. They arrested them violently, without hesitation.”
On October 12, 2022, Eftekhari joined a large crowd calling for justice, expecting the same routine beatings and arbitrary arrests she had already experienced. The security forces escalated their tactics, however, and fired pellets to disperse crowds and quell the protests through intimidation and violence. She was shot by a pellet that blinded her in one of her eyes.
EFTEKHARI WAS taken by regime security forces to Torfeh Hospital in Tehran, where she was kept under strict security conditions. From there, the regime transferred her to Imam Hossein Educational, Research, and Therapeutic Center, a psychiatric hospital, despite not suffering from any psychiatric conditions that would warrant such a hospitalization.
“I did not want to go there at all,” Eftekhari said. “It was deeply frightening for me. I was left sitting for hours in a waiting corridor, surrounded by the terrifying sounds of psychiatric patients. It had only been a few days since I lost my eye, and I was already in that environment. After long, heavy hours, two men in white medical coats came, but they did not [seem] like doctors. They [seemed] like interrogators.”
The men attempted to pressure her into saying she was suicidal but were forced to release her when she did not succumb to their pressure, which would have allowed them to institutionalize her.
Eftekhari then fled to Germany, where she faced harrassment from regime supporters
After that experience, Eftekhari fled Iran to Germany, where she has been repeatedly harassed by supporters of the regime.
“Today, I am experiencing frightening things even in Germany,” she said. “I no longer feel safe here because of the presence of Islamic extremists and supporters of the Islamic Republic. I know that in a democracy, promoting terrorism is forbidden. But how is it possible that in Western countries, groups connected to regimes like the Islamic Republic and organizations like Hamas are allowed to openly spread their propaganda in the streets?”
Eftekhari said she was afraid when she saw the flags of the same regime that attacked her flown openly in the streets.
Eftekhari was assaulted last week during a demonstration in an interaction that has now gone viral. Recordings of the incident showed men surrounding her while screaming, “Allahu akhbar,” and “Khamenei akhbar” ([Mojtaba] Khamenei is the greatest). A woman with a Palestinian sticker on her face attempted to grab her.
“A few days ago, I was attacked and beaten in the streets by Islamist individuals and Hamas supporters,” Eftekhari said. “My only ‘crime’ was that when I saw the flag of the Islamic Republic, I shouted: ‘The Islamic Republic shot my eye.’ That alone was enough for them to attack me. These are people who are not even Iranian, yet Khamenei is like an idol to them. This is dangerous for the West.”
“If European leaders foolishly continue promoting Islamism within their societies, one day in history we will witness the destruction of democracy and human rights in Western countries,” she said.
The same value for human life experienced in the West should be instilled in Iran, Eftekhari said, adding that she was afraid the Islamist extremism enforced in Iran was being imported into Europe.
Eftekhari said she would like to see Israel and the US resume airstrikes against Iran but confine them to military infrastructure and nuclear facilities to spare civilian lives.
“The lives of the Iranian people are my redline, because I love the people of Iran,” she said. “But in my opinion, we have now reached such a level of suffocation that we need targeted military action by Israel and the United States. Because for 47 years we have fought a regime like ISIS with empty hands, and we have been killed, executed, and oppressed.”