Steven Powles KC is a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers. He specialises in international crime and human rights.
I have been deeply moved by the ongoing protests in Iran, and angered greatly by the violent response of Iran’s leaders. Not that you’d know it from my name, but I’m half English and half Iranian. My mother left Iran in the 1960’s, believing even then, long before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, that it was no place for a young, ambitious woman in which to grow. Moreover, she, and her family, were Baha’i, a much-persecuted religious minority in Iran, all the more so after the Revolution. The Baha’i belief in the unity of all races, religions and a firm commitment to the equality of women and men meant it did not necessarily fit the Islamic Revolution’s world view. The Persian poet, Táhirih, an early heroine from Baha’i history, was one of the first women in Iran to publicly remove her hijab. She was executed in 1852, defiantly declaring ‘You can kill me as soon as you like, but you cannot stop the emancipation of women’.