What A Day - Remembering Mahsa Amini, One Year Later

Episode Date: September 15, 2023

September 16th marks the one year anniversary since the death of Mahsa Amini and the start of a women-led revolution in Iran. The 22-year-old died in custody at the hands of the so-called morality police after allegedly violating the regime’s dress code. And within days, Iranians filled the streets in outrage. We’re joined by Iranian-American journalist Suzanne Kianpour to talk about how Iran has changed one year later.And in headlines: Hunter Biden was charged on three criminal counts in federal court, a Georgia judge ruled that Donald Trump and 16 others will be tried separately from two co-defendants heading to trial next month, and Planned Parenthood in Wisconsin announced that it’ll resume providing abortion services starting on Monday.Show Notes:Suzanne Kianpour in Politico: “The Women of Iran Are Not Backing Down” – https://tinyurl.com/2hlqjaebSuzanne Kianpour – https://www.kianpourworld.com/ What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastCrooked Coffee is officially here. Our first blend, What A Morning, is available in medium and dark roasts. Wake up with your own bag at crooked.com/coffeeFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Friday, September 15th. I'm Priyanka Arabindi. And I'm Trevelle Anderson, and this is What A Day. Sean Puffdaddycombs' label might be bad boy, but on our pod, he's a good guy. Yeah, one of the best guys, because he recently said he is giving publishing rights back to artists like Notorious B.I.G.'s Estate, Faith Evans, and the one and only Danity Cain. Shout out to Danity Cain. Very important. Very important. On today's show, President Biden's son, Hunter Biden, was charged in federal court.

Plus, big news from the Badger State. This Monday, September 18th, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin will resume abortion care at our Water Street Health Center in Milwaukee resume abortion care at our Water Street Health Center in Milwaukee and in Madison at our Madison East Health Center. That is coming up. But first, we will spend most of our show today commemorating Masa Amini one year later. Tomorrow is the one year anniversary since the 22-year-old's death and the start of a women-led revolution in Iran. Masa Amini died in custody at the hands of the so-called morality police after allegedly violating the regime's dress code. Iranian authorities claimed that she died from a heart attack, but her family denied that she had any heart issues and said that she was beaten to death.

Within days, Iranians filled the streets in outrage. It very quickly became clear that this was the most blatant challenge to the Islamic Republic since it took over the country in 1979. After Amini's death, women took off their headscarves and burned them in public displays to show solidarity. You can hear women doing that in front of a crowd in this clip. This, of course, was incredibly dangerous and risky for the women of Iran to do, because for four decades, the theocratic regime there has enforced strict, strict rules on the country's population. Women in particular must cover their heads with hijabs and only wear loose clothing. They are not allowed to dance or sing in public.

They cannot attend men's sporting events. Living as a woman in Iran under this theocracy means many, many restrictions on your day-to-day life. But this revolution has changed some of that. Yeah, I remember last fall how the protests grew out of Iran and they spread internationally. You could see so many different images and solidarity and support on social media. People all over the world knew Masa Amini's name and they chanted women, life, freedom. Yeah, it's a rallying cry we still hear now, one year later. I wanted to learn more about how this past year has changed Iran and its people. If you've been listening to What A Day for a while, you may remember Suzanne Kianpour, an Iranian-American journalist.

She actually joined our show for International Women's Day earlier this year. She is the creator and host of a BBC program called Women Building Peace. September 16th has been named Masa Day, and I talked with her about all of this earlier this week. I started out by asking Suzanne what that first week in Iran right after Masa's death looked like. The first few days looked a lot like the Green Revolution of 2009, where we saw protests erupt, protesting political corruption. And that was about the presidential election and the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was a hardliner. And so that's what it looked like at first. And I was in New York for the UN General Assembly, and I was speaking to a US intelligence official, longtime Iran expert. And they were saying, you know what, we've seen this

before. We've seen protests flare up. 2009 was the biggest one in recent history. But since then, there have been others, which included protests about the hijab. And he said, these are just going to die down and the regime will crack down on them. And I said, this is different and this is different because it's led by the women. But also what was different about it was that this wasn't a political movement. This was a civil rights movement. It was a civil rights movement led by women and most importantly, supported by men. Some of these videos that were the most shocking were of women walking down the street,

not covering their hair, not covering their bodies in these tunics that you usually have to wear, showing their arms, showing their legs. I mean, it is hard to really put into words for a Western audience just how brave this is. You are literally walking outside knowing you could be shot and killed. As these women were doing this, men were walking alongside them and protecting them and praising them. Those first few days and then weeks were just extraordinary. And the women of Iran did not back down. And they won. They won because they couldn't be silenced.

I want to talk about that in particular. I mean, that kind of imagery is what has stuck out, I feel like, in the minds of so many as the most defining of this revolution. But I mean, this regime, you know, has kept very strict laws on women, including on how, you know, they can appear in public. How have women been able to express themselves since this revolution began compared to before. What is it like now today? So my contacts inside the country are telling me that women are not only going out without their hair covered, they're going out without wearing, they're called manto. So that's like a tunic. So you're supposed to be wearing loose clothing. They're just going out wearing what they would be wearing in Dubai or in DC.C. or in L.A.

Right. Which, again, I mean, that hijab was the fabric of the regime. And the women had been slowly pulling at the thread, unraveling this literal fabric until finally you reach that final scene where it's just there's no going back. Right. And that's where we are. They know we're there. They know they have to reform. It looks like quiet reform, but they're not going to announce it because if you announce it, then you've accepted defeat. We saw what happened

with the schoolgirls rising up against the IRGC officials coming into the schools and screaming obscenities at them, calling for death to the dictator, death to the Supreme Leader. And then we saw the poisonings of the schoolgirls, where the regime officials were saying, oh, we don't know who did this. So they don't know who's poisoning the schoolgirls, but they know when your hijab falls off your head when you're sitting behind the steering wheel at a traffic light. And so there were all these moments, I think, where they tried to use their usual toolkit of pressure and oppression, and it didn't work. And they recognized that.

And so I think we're seeing quiet reform because that's the only way the regime can survive. Certainly. Women, Life, Freedom has become the slogan of this movement, defining and known around the world, which really speaks to, you know, how this is bigger than just eliminating the laws on Iranian women. What kind of lasting impact do you think this revolution will have

on the people of Iran? The way the world rallied, the way the women galvanized the world. So in Iran, Iranian women are often referred to as Shirzan, which means lioness. And we saw why. Right. And I think if the 2009 Green Revolution was the Twitter revolution, I mean, the Green Revolution really put Twitter on the map and showed the power of social media. Then the Women, Life, Freedom revolution was the Instagram revolution. And I think what was really touching for the Iranian people was that they were finally heard. And that was what they wanted. A lot of the times when I would ask people, what do you want? They just didn't want to be forgotten. It's the same thing that the women of Afghanistan want,

but the women of Afghanistan have been forgotten. So I think women life freedom is not just about the Iranian women, you know, women in Iran fighting against theocracy. Women in Afghanistan fighting against theocracy. Women in Ukraine fighting against autocracy. Women in Russia fighting against autocracy. Women in the West fighting against misogyny. Women like freedom is more than just not being able to have your hair flow in the wind. And that was my conversation with Iranian-American journalist, Suzanne Kianpour.

Yeah, thank you so much for that, Priyanka. And in some related news, the U.S. House passed a sanctions bill on Iran this week. Almost unanimously, it's called the Masa Amini Human Rights and Security Accountability Act. It targets Iran for its human rights record and places restrictions on the country's production and export of weapons. That bill is now headed to the Senate. You can find more of Suzanne's work linked in our show

notes. That is the latest for now. We'll be back after some ads. Let's get to some headlines. Headlines. Hunter Biden, President Biden's son, was charged on three criminal counts yesterday in federal court. They're all tied to the allocation that he possessed a gun back in 2018 while using narcotics. The indictment came about because a plea deal crumbled apart at the last minute in June. And if Hunter Biden is convicted, he could face up to 25 years in prison and $750,000 in fines. The Justice Department also signaled that it's still investigating his international business dealings and if he violated laws against lobbying for other countries. If such evidence exists, House Republicans could use that information to fuel their campaign to impeach President Biden. As for yesterday's charges against Hunter Biden,

no date has been set yet for his arraignment. Yeah, let's be real. Even if such evidence does not exist, House Republicans will be trying to use that to fuel their impeachment effort. Absolutely. It's kind of a lose-lose either way. Yeah. And now to an update in the Georgia election interference case where Donald Trump and 18 others were charged last month over their efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. A judge there ruled yesterday that Trump and 16 others will be tried separately from two co-defendants heading to trial next month. Those two co-defendants are lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesbrough, both of whom sought a speedy trial and will be tried together.

Their trial is set to begin on October 23rd, and the judge said that he is aiming to have a jury seated by November 3rd. As for Trump, a date for his trial, as well as the 16 others, is not on the books quite yet. The judge's ruling came after Fulton County District Attorney Bonnie Willis urged all 19 defendants to be tried together, citing fairness and efficiency. But in his ruling yesterday, the judge cited logistical concerns like the Fulton County courthouse not being big enough for all 19 defendants to be tried together, as well as a tight timeline that could prevent some lawyers from fully preparing for trial. So TLDR, Trump

will not be tried next month. We are not exactly sure when he will be tried. All we can confirm is that we will, in fact, be here to give you all the news when it happens. And now some disturbing news in Seattle. Earlier this week, body cam footage was released in which a police officer is heard joking about a woman's death and saying that her life had, quote, limited value. There's a lot of pieces to this story, but here's what you need to know. The footage was recorded back in January, and in it, you can hear police officer Daniel Otterer, who is also vice president of Seattle's police union, speaking to someone on the phone. Otterer was reportedly talking to Mike Solon, president of the union, but that side of

the call can't be heard. So Otterer was responding to a crash where another officer had struck and killed 23-year-old Jonna V. Kondula in a crosswalk. And after evaluating the incident, Otterer reportedly called up Solon and is heard talking about what happened. Take a listen to the recording released by the Seattle Police Department and a heard talking about what happened. Take a listen to the recording released by the Seattle Police Department and a warning, it is chilling. Yeah, just write a check. $11,000. She was 26 anyway. She had limited value. Yikes. The Seattle Office of Police Accountability is investigating the incident. Meanwhile, Autor has not responded to media outlets for comment. But a conservative talk radio host in Seattle reportedly obtained an account Autor filed to the Office of Police Accountability.

In it, Autor states that his comments were meant to mock city attorneys who might seek to minimize liability for Candula's death. Candula was on track to graduate this december with a master's degree her uncle told the seattle times quote the family has nothing to say except i wonder if these men's daughters or granddaughters have value a life is a life yeah it is so chilling to hear the way he laughs after a person was killed. It just is the callousness and disregard for the lives of people of color that these people in authority positions who are supposed to be making, in theory, our towns and cities safer places to be, have.

It's something that we learn and become reacquainted with every single day. It's a sad reality. And this is just another extremely disheartening and outrageous display. Yeah. It's been a big week for aliens here in the U.S. NASA released a report on Thursday outlining its plan to study UAPs or unidentified Anomalous Phenomena sounds like a Cardi B song. Boo-wop is just how I'm going to refer to it now. That starts with the agency's move to appoint an official director for UAP research. But don't get too excited quite yet.

NASA clarified that this does not mean that they've found any evidence to suggest that any of the UAPs reported so far are extraterrestrials or aliens, but rather that the agency is committed to being an active part of the effort to understand what they are. Meanwhile, the real action is happening over in Mexico, where lawmakers held a hearing about UFOs on Wednesday. Jaime Mawson, a journalist and self-proclaimed quote-unquote ufologist, which is UFO and you stick the word ologist, I guess, made headlines after he presented two bodies that he said were alien corpses. If you watch the video of his testimony, the figures basically look like a white version of E.T., big heads, tiny bodies, and hands that only have three fingers on them.

According to Mawson, the bodies were found in Peru back in 2017, but are over a thousand years old. Mousen, not the first to make this kind of claim. Scientists have consistently said that quote-unquote alien corpses like the ones Mousen presented are just mummies. But still, Mousen insisted under oath that quote, we are not alone. Listen, he might be that, quote, we are not alone. Listen, he might be on to something with that.

We are not alone. I don't know if these bodies are representative of, you know, that. But yes, he might be on to something. I think you're right. I don't think this man lied under oath, but I'm not buying the corpses. Great news for cheeseheads. Planned Parenthood in Wisconsin announced yesterday that it'll resume providing abortion services starting on Monday. Back in July, a judge in the state signaled that Wisconsin's 1849 abortion ban would not be enforceable. Planned Parenthood then spent months consulting with doctors, lawyers, and other

stakeholders before making yesterday's announcement. Here's what the head of the organization, Tanya Atkinson, said in a statement. Thank you for working tirelessly to write this course of history in Wisconsin. Because of your continued support and because together we never give up. Ever since Dobbs, Wisconsinites had to cross state lines into nearby Illinois or Minnesota to get an abortion. But this Monday, they'll be able to go to Planned Parenthood's locations in Milwaukee or Madison. Yeah, this is huge for the people of Wisconsin. Thank you, Planned Parenthood's locations in Milwaukee or Madison. Yeah, this is huge for the people of Wisconsin. Thank you, Planned Parenthood, for your work. This is vital. I think people there are breathing sighs of relief.

These are services that people around the country don't have access to very clearly, and I'm sure are wishing they were in the position of the people of Wisconsin now who can get this at least somewhat closer to home than they used to be before. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, or GLAAD for short, found that LGBTQ plus representation in film is at an all-time high right now. But that could change if studios don't make a deal with Hollywood's striking writers and actors. This is according to GLAAD's Studio Responsibility Report, an annual study tracking the, quote, quantity, quality, and diversity of queer movie characters. This year's report was released yesterday, and it found that almost 29% of movies that came out in 2022 featured an LGBTQ plus character. That is the highest percentage that GLAAD has ever recorded

in its 11 years conducting this study, with record numbers of trans and non-binary characters in particular. But, important caveats here, not all LGBTQ plus characters had significant screen time. Half of them were only on camera for less than five minutes, and a whopping 86% were for less than one minute. Great news and all, but still a lot more work to do. GLAAD held a joint press conference with striking unions SAG-AFTRA and the WGA at the Los Angeles LGBT Center to discuss their findings on Thursday. the queer community by meeting the demands of striking actors and writers or risk losing all of the progress that the industry has made towards representing the LGBTQ plus community on the silver screen. It's good to see that representation is up, if you will, but that particular point that you highlighted that right is just like, you know, we're only on screen for less than a minute when

you see us like how odd is that? That's tough to really, really get too excited about. Yeah, it's interesting. And those are the headlines. One more thing before we go. By now, you've all heard about Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher's letters of support in the Danny Masterson case. On this week's episode of Hysteria,

hosts Aaron Ryan and Alyssa Mastromonaco dig into the story from the social backlash to the star's subsequent apology video. Listen to this episode and more every Wednesday only on Hysteria. That is all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, DM us ET, and tell your friends to listen and if you are into reading and not just advancing women's rights around the world like me what a day is also a nightly newsletter check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe I'm Trevelle Anderson I'm Priyanka Arabindi and keep Hollywood queer but give us a few more minutes on screen, please. A little more queer, honestly.

Right. 86% at one minute. Guys, come on. That's actually outrageous. And it is. Yeah, we're begging for scraps here. Well, today's a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Bill Lance.

Our show's producers, Itzy Quintanilla, Raven Yamamoto, and Natalie Bettendorf are our associate producers. And our senior producer is Lita Martinez. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. you