When Chowra Makaremi came to France from Iran as a child, she had to leave her mother behind. Several years later, in 1988, her jailed mother was one of thousands killed in mass executions. Now an anthropologist, Marakemi explains that the Iranian regime has long used state violence for control, setting up a sort of "contract" to keep society within their "red lines". She says the current protests, which began four months ago following the death of Mahsa Amini, are a sign that Iranians are no longer accepting the regime's "game of terror".
Marakemi tells us that a generation of Iranians who, like her, lost family members to state violence have transmitted "a memory of resistance", adding that the current movement is being fuelled not by fear, but by anger at the executions of protesters.
