The unknown women who became a symbol of Iran's protests

Last week Iran swept through a wave of protests in which thousands of Iranians took to the streets to protest against government corruption, unemployment and weak economy.

Despite the tightening of restrictions on social media, some video clips and images have been posted on the Internet, including those that appear to be for demonstrators who destroy some buildings while government forces fire at them.

Iranian authorities have blocked the Intergram photo site and the Tilgram application in an attempt to disrupt calls to protest and prevent the publication of videos and images on the Internet, but a number of images found their way to the Internet.

Among the widely-circulated images was a woman wearing a white headdress and waving a stick in a clear challenge to the country's ruling regime.

Although the picture is real, it was not captured during this wave of protests.
The story of the picture
The protests began on 28 December in Mashhad, the second largest city in the country, followed by demonstrations in many other cities and villages where protesters demanded the end of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's rule.

Before the demonstrations broke out a day, the image of a woman wearing a white headscarf on social media was published by Masih Ali Nejad, an Iranian journalist living in America.

Ms. Ali Nejad is also an activist in the field of women's rights and a founder of two social media campaigns, "My Secret Freedom" and "White Wednesday".

The first campaign encourages Iranian women to publish photographs and videos showing them without mandatory headscarves in public places, while the second campaign, which began in 2017, urges women to wear white clothes every Wednesday to protest against their strict dress in Iran.

Ali Najad posted the picture on her front page on the Ingrid website as part of her White Wednesday campaign.
The images of women standing on a bald headdress fund began to spread by those who did not believe reform was adequate and by demonstrators who were disappointed in the clergy who held power.

As a result, the young woman has become a symbol of Iran's protest movement that has mobilized hundreds of Iranians, some even calling it "Rosa Parks," a well-known civil rights activist in America.

Hundreds of users of social media have replaced their personal pictures of women with the veil.

Although the identity and fate of women remain unknown, they have become a symbol of liberation and hope for many of the demonstrators against the Iranian government.