The Rings of Power Star Nazanin Boniadi on the Protests in Iran and What Comes Next

Protests have raged in Iran and across the world since Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman from the western city of Saqqez, died in Tehran after being detained by the morality police there this month. As women haven taken to the streets to speak out against Iran’s hijab law and other forces of gendered repression in their home country, Vogue spoke to British Iranian actor and activist Nazanin Boniadi about watching the protests from afar, the link between reproductive rights in the U.S. and bodily autonomy in Iran, and how to support the protesters. Read the full interview below.

Vogue: Where are you based right now? And how does it feel to watch the protests in Iran unfold from there?

Nazanin Boniadi: I’m in California right now—and it’s daunting; it’s terrifying; it’s history repeating itself. My hope is that this time, the international response will support Iranian people to find the freedoms they deserve. My parents were Iranian refugees who opposed the newly formed-at-the-time Islamic Republic, so they had to escape. We found refuge in London. I actually turned 13 while we were visiting Iran, and I have very fond memories of the people and the culture, but it was extremely jarring to me to be forced to wear a hijab at that age. I didn’t understand it; I didn’t grow up in a climate where dress codes like that were enforced. I remember walking down the street with my mother’s brother, my uncle, when he was 50 and I was 12, and we were stopped by a member of the morality police. My mother was three steps behind us, walking down the street in Tehran. This morality policeman asked us to provide documentation of marriage. It was such a harrowing experience to be questioned as a 12-year-old; I immediately just felt like, That’s something that needs to change, that kind of social oppression. 

Before 1979, a family protection law was in place for women; they could wear what they wanted. Now, women have been stripped of those rights. They can’t dance in public. They can’t sing in public. They can’t ride a bicycle. They are segregated from men in the classroom, in the workplace, at beaches. And, of course, the compulsory hijab has become a symbol of that struggle in a country where women can’t become judges. They can’t become president. They can’t become Supreme Leader. They can’t become members of the Guardian Council. And without that access to two key political roles, they don’t have any influence in changing their own futures. I just promised myself in that moment that if I ever had an opportunity to be able to make a difference for those girls, I would do it. With the permission of a father or a judge, a man can still marry a girl in Iran who is as young as nine. It’s a country—not a culture—in which women can’t have control over their own lives and destinies. And yet, you’ve seen the brave and courageous women of Iran fight for four decades, and they are more educated—they outnumber men in Iran, as far as higher education is concerned. They’re told what they can study and where they can work, and what you’re seeing in the streets of Iran is women bravely starting the first feminist revolution that we’ve seen. And I think the world needs to get behind it.

Can you tell me a little bit about your advocacy for Iranian human rights?

My work with Amnesty International has gone back as far as 2008. My work mostly involves advocating for human rights in Iran at the German Bundestag, at the UK Parliament, at the UN. You know, I think sometimes politics gets in the way of simply supporting human rights anywhere in the world. Democrats and Republicans are both guilty of either being silent on human rights or advocating for human rights when it suits their political agenda, and I think we just have to set that aside. That’s been my number one goal for over a decade now. Whether it’s writing op-eds or speaking to people like you to try to get the word out, it’s really about amplifying the voices of the disenfranchised. 

As actors, we actually rely heavily on the freedom of expression in our work, and I think to take that for granted and not use our platforms to be the voice of the voiceless is a dangerous precedent, because that right could be taken away from us at any moment. And we’re seeing that fight for bodily autonomy here in America; that complacency can lead to the reversal of rights. 

Is there anything you wish people understood better about what’s going on in Iran right now?

Yes, I think there are a couple of things. One is, what started with the brutal murder of Mahsa Amini in custody—mainly because of compulsory hijab laws—has turned into national outrage at the regime. I think it’s very important to hear the chants and the slogans on the streets of Iran right now. And the other thing is that people often say that the hijab is part of Iran’s culture and we shouldn’t meddle in somebody else’s culture. I don’t know of any culture that has to be enforced with a baton or the threat of that. And if you see women taking to the streets, burning their headscarves and knowing that that might lead to their death or imprisonment or torture, you have to think twice about calling the hijab a cultural norm. It’s an insult to those women. I think it’s important to put out images of pre-1979 Iran, where women peacefully coexisted, wearing the hijab and not wearing the hijab. We had the freedom of choice, so that idea of it being cultural I think is false.

How can people who aren’t in Iran get involved and support the protesters?

There’s an Amnesty petition that I urge people to sign. We’re calling on people to call their representatives, wherever they may be, and demand that they hold those Iranian authorities committing human rights violations accountable. We don’t have that kind of mechanism in place, but as the world comes together and lawmakers come together, and they create this international mechanism, hopefully we can hold human rights violators and those committing crimes against humanity to account. Another important thing people might not understand is the power of the hashtag: #MahsaAmini in its correct spelling is very important because the Iran cyber army has tried to inject the wrong spelling to break this phenomenon that’s happened. Mahsa Amini’s name has been hashtagged on Twitter over 85 million times, and that global solidarity that we’re seeing struck a chord with people for a reason. We are begging people to keep her name alive because it was the powder keg that started these protests, and we don’t want her to have died in vain. So I urge people to go out, to join demonstrations, to learn more, to amplify but also to sign the Amnesty petition and call their representatives and demand change.