October 6, 2022
When twenty-two year old Mahsa Amini stepped off a train in Tehran to visit her uncle three weeks ago, she was suddenly confronted by Iran’s morality police and taken into custody, where she ultimately died. Her death triggered waves of protest around the world, and especially in Iran where hostilities remain high.
Several fundholders at the Community Foundation have sought ways to support the Iranian women who are at the fore of these protests.
We encourage you to learn more about these two organizations:
United for Iran is a San Francisco-based human rights organization that developed an encryption app called Nahoft (which means “hidden” in Farsi) that turns up to 1,000 characters of Farsi text into a jumble of random words or images. Messages may be sent between and among those in Iran on any platform, then sent through the app to decipher what is being said. The app is designed to help Iranians slip through the country’s Internet crackdown and, in some cases, give advance warning when morality police are in a specific location.
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) is the press association established in 2009 by Iranian human rights advocates in order to report and disseminate daily news of human rights violations in Iran. The English section of HRANA includes translated news of events initially prepared in Farsi and distributed by human rights reporters throughout Iran.