Maeve Higgins: Broad strokes are unhelpful when the stakes are so high in Iran

Last week, an Iranian government spokesman announced that the morality police had been abolished. However, laws about how women must dress remain the same as before the protests over the death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini and Iranians know change does not always happen quickly

A woman at a protest against the death of Mahsa Amini. Photo: AP/Gregorio Borgia

Successful revolutions don’t happen overnight, except when they do. Trying to predict when a regime might topple might be an interesting intellectual question to puzzle over from a distance, but what is it like to live through that struggle, to try to effect change, or try to prevent it?

Iranians are living through that right now and have been since the death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini in state custody. Her death, caused by the brutality inflicted by the so-called ‘morality police’, set off a wave of protests three months ago. At least 488 people have been killed since mid-September, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, an NGO monitoring the protests, who also report that authorities have detained up to 18,200 people.