The struggle of women in Iran and Afghanistan through the eyes of an artist
Today, September 2025, it remains impossible to forget the name of Mahsa Amini. Her death, in 2022, unleashed a wave of protests that marked a turning point in Iran and which still reverberate across the world today. Three years later, the repression persists: women without veils are excluded from public spaces, arbitrarily detained, and condemned to live in a state of constant threat. In Afghanistan, the situation is no better: girls without access to education, women silenced and reduced to anonymity.
Yet in the face of oppression, resistance remains undimmed. Voices such as that of the anonymous artist Suratí continue to remind us that art is also a weapon:
“The mullahs seek to erase the faces and voices of women from the world. Yet silence, too, cries out. Every empty street, every shuttered window, every cat left without a lullaby in the night speaks for us. We are women who struggle.”
In 2024, Surati granted us her testimony, which we recover today as it is not an echo of the past, but an urgent call to the present. Iranian and Afghan women continue to face violence with courage, transforming hopelessness into art, into symbol, and into memory:
“¡Atención! Esto es una pesadilla en la que tienes que cerrar los ojos para despertar. ¡Tienes que ignorar mis palabras! Estás en completa oscuridad; en el rincón del mundo donde, si no ha acabado, da su último aliento. Sí, estás viendo el mundo como una sombra negra agazapada sobre una cuneta embarrada y vomitando sangre. A ambos lados de la cuneta hay dos casas viejas, ladrillo a ladrillo, convertidas en nada en el estómago de termitas y están muy vacías y muy huecas, pero siguen en pie. Nací en una de esas casas, fui una niña y me hice mayor. Nuestra casa está encantada. Permíteme que precise. Supongo que has visto en el cine la película Harry Potter, durante una de las hermosas tardes de tu infancia y que debió ser muy difícil imaginarte a los Dementores.
The Dementors, those malevolent phantoms that drain the soul of a person, leaving only agony in their wake. I shall share a secret with you! The Dementors truly exist. They have invaded our home. And the homes of our neighbours. I have termed them Holy Dementors. This was intended to be a pleasant and glamorous article, yet I find myself profoundly weary. Too weary to conceal myself behind metaphors. I am not happy, but I am now more sorrowful for my neighbour. I am aggrieved for her, as I can no longer even see her from the window of her wretched house. The mullahs, those holy dementors, have determined that she must remain hidden. Like an unsightly sin. They wish to erase the faces and voices of Afghan women from the world. Were you aware that hearing is the final sense to vanish when a person dies? Perhaps that is why they harbour such fear of our voices. Mullahs, do not concern yourselves; the women of the Middle East and our Afghan neighbours exist beneath the feet of this world, far from the ears of the world, and although we cry out with all our hearts, our voice is a solitary note that, like Sisyphus, we must roll to the summits of the world's ears. And as soon as we are breathless, the world rolls it back down, and you prevail. Thus, why do you harbour such fear of our voices?
Mullahs, you are experts in lust and murder, and generally, you comprehend nothing of art; therefore, permit me to clarify one matter: the most powerful and unforgettable act in performance is termed the “Silent Act”; that which the actor expresses without words and reveals to the audience. Silence the voices of Afghan women; what shall you do with the silent act of the streets? What shall you do with the sorrowful gaze of the streets that will cry out that they are devoid of feminine beauty? What shall you do with the silent act of the cat that used to listen at night to the lullaby the neighbour sang to her baby? What shall you do with the silent act of the sorrowful veils that cover the faces of women?
Mullahs, did you play Atari when you were children? Atari had a game where you had to shoot birds and you received points; it was not possible to kill all the birds at once. When you shot one bird, the other escaped. Did you truly witness Manizha Talash’s act of silence on the Paris Olympic stage? An Afghan bird danced and flew; she was silent but she shouted: Freedom for Afghan women. Even though she was disqualified for it. That is why you do not need to be afraid. You see, we live in a world where asking for help is considered a political slogan; and, in an event that is based on unity, the stoning, torture, and death of human beings have no value at all. So, why are you afraid? The world does not want to do anything with you, except that one day you will conquer the entire world and they will understand that when the mullahs suck the blood of every black-haired woman, they will come for the blonde-haired women. Neighbour, I know you are tired; my voice is illegal just like yours. Like you, I have no right to sing. And although my friends and I sometimes shout very bravely, one by one we fall to the ground from bullets. Neighbour, I know you are very afflicted, but admit with me that they will never be able to take our voice away.
Hey, Mullahs, you have lost. When you look at the stones, you hear the screams of the women you stoned; when you buy ice cream for your children, you hear the crushed skull of the teenage girl you raped and killed behind the ice cream truck. When you look in the mirror, you will hear the sound of the bullets striking the eyes, hearts, and spines of the people. When you hear the athan, you will hear the cries of the mothers whose children you have executed. And, indeed, when you listen to the city, you will no longer hear the voices of women.
Sad, is it not?
Fracasasteis una vez y volveréis a fracasar. Vecina, tú y yo luchamos por las mujeres, por la vida y por la libertad. Y ni siquiera importa si ganamos porque tú y yo nos hemos convertido en la pesadilla de los mulás. Somos mujeres que luchan.”
From Kripties Foundation, we join in that cry: Woman, life, freedom. Because it is not only about denouncing barbarity, but about sustaining the voice of those who risk everything so that hope does not die.