led a demonstration in support of the people of Iran and the artists who have been detained by the country’s political regime at the Göteborg Film Festival Tuesday evening.
“We, artists, writers, academics, and cultural practitioners from across disciplines and various countries, support the call of our Iranian colleagues to stand in solidarity with their struggle against the repressive and despotic Islamic state in Iran,” Ebrahimi said during her speech. Since the beginning of the country’s revolutionary movement, 173 artists, filmmakers, and art students have been tortured, jailed, or are out on bail, according to a list published by Art Culture Action Association. Ending the demonstration, Ebrahimi read all 173 names aloud.
Led by women, Iranians from all walks of life have demonstrated determination in standing against state brutality in the past eighty days since the killing of 22-year-old woman, Zhina Mahsa Amini, at the hands of the Islamic state in Iran. What began as a protest against mandatory hejab and decades of systemic human rights violations has now turned into the “Woman, Life, Liberty” movement, demanding the end of the theocratic rule by an unelected clerical system in Iran.
We recognise that the recent terror is not an isolated event. Over the last 44 years, the Islamic state’s machinery has resorted to all manner of social and cultural injustice, including the oppression of ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities, as well as legally sanctioned misogyny, homophobia, and xenophobia.