Former Iranian journalist joins protests over Islamic regime dictates

The previous journalist felt compelled to go away her native nation after its controversial presidential election the earlier yr, which prompted international allegations of fraudulent voter outcomes and suspicions of political corruption.

“As reformists, we have been protesting within the streets as a result of we pretty believed that the hardliners had stolen our votes,” Goodrich instructed me.

She lives in Highland but continues to protest within the streets to reveal in opposition to injustices that scream out to her. The most recent scream got here from Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish girl who was arrested final month in Tehran by the federal government’s “morality police” for not correctly carrying her hijab, or headband.

She died at a hospital whereas in police custody. Police declare that Amini had underlying well being issues, solely additional inciting outrage over her suspicious dying by Iranians and human rights activists around the globe. A type of activists is Goodrich, who nonetheless has the angle of a journalist.

“Police brutality in the direction of an harmless lady outraged Iranians,” she stated. “The protests began in Mahsa’s hometown, Saqez in Kurdistan, and shortly expanded to the opposite cities, together with the capital.”

The protests proceed, nearly one month after Amini’s dying, in Iran and in our nation, most just lately in Chicago and at Purdue College in West Lafayette. Goodrich, who took half in each demonstrations, works as a lecturer on the Purdue Language and Cultural Change. The group helps worldwide college students study English as a second language whereas providing cultural assist as they modify to life at a U.S. college.

“As a sample persistently repeated, the Islamic regime didn’t hesitate to ignite its suppression engine, attacking the protesters, capturing at them and arresting hundreds of Iranians both within the streets or by brutally invading their homes,” Goodrich stated.

To forestall protesters from spreading the information, pictures and movies of police state brutality coming from Iran, the Islamic regime has shut down the web in lots of areas of the nation. The protesters in Iran are relying on native Iranians dwelling outdoors the nation to share the atrocities happening every single day.

“Hundreds of thousands of Iranians outdoors the nation have been heartbroken but decided to amplify the suppressed voices of their individuals inside Iran,” Goodrich stated.

“Up to now 4 weeks, they’ve been relentlessly attracting the eye of the world to what’s happening in Iran, demanding the governments of different international locations — together with the U.S. — to not solely condemn the violation of human rights in Iran, but in addition take measures to difficulty extra sanctions on the Islamic regime officers.”

Feminine protesters in Iran are publicly burning their headscarves and slicing their hair in defiance of the regime’s orders. What braveness it should take to do such a factor below that type of oppression and threats of dying. To indicate assist, Goodrich has lower her hair throughout protests right here.

“Most Iranians, particularly girls, have been affected by being monitored in all features of their lives — what to put on, what to eat, what to drink, the way to suppose, what to consider and what to say,” she stated. “I, equally, detest the complete regime and its elements, together with the morality police. My rage will not be new although. It’s rooted in 43 years of being repressed, monitored and devalued as a lady.”

One Iranian authorities official instructed an unbiased reformist newspaper there that pupil protesters are being taken to psychological well being establishments to reform and reeducate in efforts to stop future “delinquent” habits.

“Mahsa was pushed right into a police van to be despatched to the so-called ‘training middle,’” Goodrich stated. “Solely the hardliners, some pious individuals, and those that have been gaining wealth and place by supporting the Islamic Republic are in favor of the morality police.”

Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed the protests as merely “scattered riots” orchestrated by enemies from outdoors the nation. Clearly, it’s political propaganda, much like what we hear from Russia, China and different dictatorship nations.

“I might have been apprehended if I had not left the nation to the U.S. in 2010,” Goodrich stated.

She was invited to Purdue College’s Hammond campus as a visiting scholar with assist from a famend Iranian-American communication professor, Dr. Yahya Kamalipour. On the time, Goodrich was a Ph.D. candidate in journalism communications, and dealing on her dissertation.

She rented an condo in Griffith close to a person named Herbert Goodrich, a Hessville native who would quickly grow to be her husband.

“I don’t have a brilliant energy, however the first time my neighbor opened the door and walked out of the constructing, I assumed, ‘Oh my God! I’m gonna marry this man!’” she stated.

Her premonition got here true. They married 18 months later.

“Earlier than leaving Iran, I knew in coronary heart that my real love was awaiting me within the USA,” she stated. “The Romeo-Juliet tie between us testifies how nations can transfer past their political contexts and love one another no matter what they’ve been taught about one another by media and propaganda.”

Inside two years, she had already dedicated what could be thought of “political crimes” to the Islamic regime: she fled Iran, traveled to the U.S. as a journalist and married a foreigner deemed “the enemy.”

“It was very dangerous to return to Iran, so I by no means went again,” Goodrich stated.

Her coronary heart stays there, although.

She urges anybody who will hear — anybody who cares — to hitch the continued protests and vigils to assist oppressed Iranians, significantly girls there. And to make use of #mahsaamini on social media, sharing related posts and proceed speaking concerning the scenario.

On Sunday, she is organizing a solidarity occasion on the Wicker Park Veterans Memorial in Highland from 3 to five p.m.

“Name your senators and Congress members,” she stated.

Ask them to carry the Islamic republic regime accountable for its systematic breach of human rights and to sentence their brutal repression of protesters, she stated.

“I left my household behind. My mom, my three sisters and their kids. However I nonetheless self-identify as a journalist at coronary heart.”