The Iranian government’s decision to shut off the internet in the country reveals the leadership cares that the world is watching.
Iran-born Green MP Golriz Ghahraman tells the Front Page podcast that while this is about suppressing the protest, it also reveals that things could become worse for the Iranian people in the coming weeks.
"It says two things: it tells me that they're about to get violent and since the internet was shut off, we've already seen extreme violence used against a university campus," says Ghahraman.
"But the other thing this tells me is that they care if the world is watching. They do care if they're exposed. They do care if they're called out by governments. And ours could certainly be doing a lot more. We haven't really said what we think this is and it is an atrocity."
These protests were sparked by the killing by police of 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini, but oppression in Iran runs far deeper than this.
Ghahraman says that while this event did spark the protests, there has long been a growing disconnect between the people and the governing theocracy.
"What this regime is imposing is very disconnected from Iranian culture. Iranians often point to the fact that this is a very old nation and Islam itself isn't organic to Iranian culture... Most Iranians do identify as Muslim, but the idea of having Islamic dress as law or having this regime's interpretation of Sharia Law, which sees a woman as being worth half a man, just has never resonated."
This has contributed to the Iranian people fighting back on many occasions over the last few decades.
Dr Forough Amin, the founder of the Iranian Women in New Zealand charitable trust, says that discrimination against women is embedded into the system from a young age.
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Advertise with NZME."Hijab is not compulsory for girls until they reach the age of nine, but if they want to go to school they have to wear it as a 6- or 7-year-old," says Amin.
"When you are 9 years old you are considered a mature woman and have to wear your hijab everywhere."
Amin says the minimum legal age for marriage in Iran was increased from nine to 13 about two decades ago.
But the oppressive rules extend well beyond the idea of marriage, with girls prohibited from engaging in a range of innocuous activities.
"You cannot dance in Iran as a girl. You cannot sing. You cannot even ride a bicycle because these things are considered erotic."
Amin says that oppressive rules are completely at odds in a country where 60 per cent of university graduates are women.
"We have highly intelligent, educated women in Iran, but their share of the labour force in the market is only 19 per cent and that's not even permanent, fulltime jobs. Most of them are casual jobs. Discrimination for women is everywhere in their daily life."
Echoing the views of Ghahraman, Amin also believes there is more the New Zealand Government can do to show support for the protest movement in the country.
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Advertise with NZME."We Iranian Kiwis have been in deep sorrow and worry over the last three weeks, but we have not heard from our ministers nor our Prime Minister," says Amin.
"I think New Zealand can do a lot more than just showing concern."
She says that practical measures New Zealand could take include expelling the Iranian Ambassador from New Zealand or closing the New Zealand embassy in Iran.
"That embassy doesn't do anything for Iranians. If we need a visa or anything like that, we need to go to the embassy in Dubai. So it just sits there at huge expense for the government."
Amin says she would also like to see the New Zealand Government designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation in New Zealand.
This is not the first time the Iranian people have protested against their government. Since the unrest of 1979, the Iranian people have taken to the streets on many occasions to challenge the theocracy of the country.
So will this be the moment that finally drives the change people have been calling for all this time?
"Honestly, we don't know," says Amin.
"The only thing we have is our determined will and our hope. But if it doesn't happen this time, the next [protest] will come soon. It used to be every 10 years that we saw these protests and uprisings, but now it's every three years."
