زن زندگی آزادی

The name

زن، زندگی، آزادی (zan, zendegi, âzâdi). “Woman, life, freedom.” Three words, three commas, no verb. The Persian translation of the Kurdish original ژن، ژیان، ئازادی (jin, jiyân, âzâdî). The Persian variant uses the everyday Persian words: zan (woman), zendegi (life), âzâdi (freedom). The order is fixed and the order is the argument.

What happened

On 17 September 2022, at the funeral of Mahsa Jina Amini in the Aichi cemetery in Saqqez, women removed their hijabs at her grave. The Kurdish chant ژن ژیان ئازادی rose from the crowd in Kurdish first, then crossed into Persian as زن زندگی آزادی within the same gathering. The journalist Elaheh Mohammadi reported the funeral for Ham-Mihan newspaper and was arrested within days. The slogan left Saqqez with the protests.

By 18-19 September the chant was on the streets of Tehran, Sanandaj, Mashhad, Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, and dozens of smaller cities. By the end of September, women across Iran were burning hijabs in public squares to the sound of zan, zendegi, âzâdi. The Iranian state prosecuted protesters for chanting it. Diaspora Iranians inscribed it on protest signs from Toronto to Berlin.

What followed

The slogan became the global short-form for the post-Mahsa uprising. The European Parliament’s 2023 Sakharov Prize cited “Mahsa Amini and the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran.” Persian-language pop songs released the slogan as a chorus. Iranian artists inside the country who released work under the slogan have been arrested. Iranian artists outside the country have built whole albums around it.

The state response includes prosecutions under “propaganda against the system,” sentences of public lashing for women caught chanting it, and a 2024 Hijab and Chastity Law that expanded penalties for any visible commitment to the protest aesthetic. Public commemorations of the slogan have been raided. The slogan continues to be chanted, on the 16th of every month, on Mahsa’s birthday, on Saqqez anniversaries.

The slogan / movement origin

زن، زندگی، آزادی is the Persian-language translation. The original is Kurdish: jin, jiyân, âzâdî. The Kurdish phrase emerged from the Kurdish women’s movement (PKK and PJAK political education across the 2000s, then the Rojava revolution from 2012), drawing on Abdullah Öcalan’s writings on women’s liberation as the precondition for societal liberation. The slogan was already in use in Kurdistan when Mahsa, herself a Kurdish woman from Saqqez, was killed; it crossed into Iranian Persian at her funeral.

The order (“woman” before “life” before “freedom”) is theological. In the political theology the Iranian regime built, women’s bodies are the place where freedom is taken first: hijab law, gender segregation, custody law, marriage age, employment restrictions. The slogan answers the regime in its own grammar: the woman is the first political subject, life follows, freedom follows that. Inverted, the line does not work.

How it’s remembered

The slogan has been chanted at every diaspora march since September 2022. It has been graffitied across Iranian cities, painted on walls, projected on buildings in Berlin, sprayed on banknotes inside Iran. Toomaj Sâlehi’s lyrics carry it. Shervin Hajipour’s song “Barâ-ye” (the song of the protests, “Because of”) ends in the chant. Iranian household commemorations on the 16th of each month feature the slogan in candle arrangements and printed signs.

The Persian translation is the version the global press uses. The Kurdish original is the version Iranian Kurds and movement activists honor. We use both names because the provenance is part of the slogan’s meaning.

Where to read more

• BBC, on the slogan and its origin
• Amnesty International, Mahsa Amini anniversary, September 2023
• Komun Academy, Jin-Jiyân-Âzâdî and the Kurdish women’s movement
• European Parliament Sakharov Prize 2023

References

• Dehkhoda, زن
• Amnesty International, “Iran: Authorities must end deadly crackdown on Mahsa Amini protests,” September 2022
• BBC Persian reporting on the funeral chant, 17-18 September 2022
• Komun Academy, “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi: The Kurdish women’s movement,” 2018
• Reuters, “Iran: protest movement one year on,” September 2023