this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2024
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An Iranian monarchist who filmed herself pulling the headscarves off Iranians in London fled to Israel after UK police announced they were investigating her.

The woman allegedly responsible is an Iranian pro-Israel activist called Bahar Mahroo, who later closed her Instagram and TikTok accounts and claimed she found the videos online. However, a reserve image search found no sources for the video, other than her Twitter account.

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[–] footoro 40 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

What an absurd story. Another nutjob the Palestinians now have to deal with. Will never understand right winger‘s obsession with the hijab.

Like I guess we all agree that it’s terrible to force women to wear something they don’t wanna wear. First of all, how do her actions fix the problem in Iran? This is just anti-Muslim racism.

Then, in the west where stuff like this happens there’s this constant allegation that women would be forced to wear it, which is in most cases wrong and just another angle on anti-Muslim racism. So these anti-hijab people want to then ban hijabs in order to „free“ the women.

It makes no sense to tell women what to wear and what not in order to free them from people allegedly telling them what to wear and what not. No one could ever come up with a coherent explanation when I raised this concern, always just a lot of mental gymnastics. I will never understand why people just don’t let other people be.

Apart from that, being against the Iranian regime is a reasonable take, but wanting back a monarchy instead? Wtf

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The old Iranian monarchy were basically Western puppets. Iran tried to break loose in the 1950s. So in 1953 America and Britain overthrew the Iranian government when it tried to claim ownership over its own oil. They also strengthened the power of the Iranian monarchy which was loyal to them.

The Iranian monarchy were some of the first to recognize israel and do anything else the West asked them to. Not much of a surprise israelis loved them.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (32 children)

This is just anti-Muslim racism.

There is no reason to believe that this woman is not herself a Muslim. Not all Muslims are in favor of head scarves. Iran was a Muslim country while the Shah ruled it too despite head scarves not being required in Tehran at the time. Is she a horrible person? Did she do something unconscionable? Absolutely. But I think calling her a racist for what she did when she could be Muslim herself is going a bit too far.

[–] footoro 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah I mean she seems to be frequently on pro-Israel protests, is a right wing supporter and an Iranian monarchist. Exiled Iranians are usually hardcore atheists and combining this with her political views and her ripping off hijabs off women’s heads I think this paints a pretty clear picture.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Exiled Iranians are usually hardcore atheists

I'm honestly asking this- are they? I've never heard this before. Where did you get that information from?

Edit: I should add that I was fairly active in the atheist community in Los Angeles, which does have a large Iranian/Persian population, and I don't remember them being prominent members of the community, but it's been a long time now, so I might just be forgetting.

[–] footoro 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I grew up in Europe in a place with a lot of exiled Iranians and have a lot of colleagues/ university buddies from there. Have a friend still living in Iran as well. This is of course kind of anecdotal but I think in general it wouldn’t be a controversial take in European countries.

I think it’s also kind of implied because they were the losers of the revolution and more conservative/religious people just tried to keep their heads down. The Iranian regime sucks even by middle eastern standards but if you’re not opposing them you can kind of get by.

I’m not at all familiar with the American-Iranian community so it may be very different over there.

The same applies btw to the new wave of Turkish immigrants. Again very anecdotal but alone in my last workplace I had like 20-30 Turkish colleagues who came to the EU from Istanbul recently and I didn’t know a single of them who was religious. Not that it matters in this post but what I’m trying to say is that societies and migration are more diverse than how it’s portrayed in the media.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's definitely far more diverse. I'm sure there are very religious people who left Iran and also atheists. There is also a small but significant Armenian Christian community in Los Angeles that emigrated from Iran. Wikipedia tells me there are still Armenian Christians in Iran, which surprises me.

[–] footoro 3 points 1 month ago

Ah you’re quick, edited something in still sorry about that.

Yeah I was also surprised, there’s also still Arab and Kurdish speaking people and a huge percentage of people actually are Azerbaijani not Persian.

It’s a cool country and I’d love to visit some day, just seems more difficult every year.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Rasicm does appear to be her motivation

Mahroo's Twitter account also reveals support for far-right politicians across Europe including well known racists like Tommy Robinson.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There is no reason to believe that this woman is not herself a Muslim.

What is Muslim to you? This is a prime example for how western people see Islam as a race, and therefore people from Iran are automatically classified as muslim.

There's a very good reason to believe that this woman is not a muslim, and that's the whole purpose of the article: she's harassing Muslim women for the sole reason that they wear a piece of clothing showing that they're Muslim. That you are unable to recognize this as what it clearly is, anti Muslim bigotry, is revealing your own bias against Muslims.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I was going to write a substantive response to this, but since you've already decided that I think Islam is a race when I told someone else below that they were mistaking Iranians for Arabs just shows you don't really care and want to berate someone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Do you have any other reason than the woman being Iranian for your remark that there's no reason to believe she's not a muslim? You don't, so my comment stands. You decided that she being Iranian is a good reason to assume she's Muslim, despite the article saying she was attacking Muslim women. We both know why, so stop clutching your pearls and have look at your own assumptions.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (8 children)

Sorry, I'm not going to have a legitimate conversation with someone who called me a racist when I said nothing racist.

Also, we have a civility rule here and you have broken it twice now. Please do not continue.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Another nutjob the Palestinians now have to deal with.

What's the relevance of this?

[–] footoro 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Did you like read the article? It’s even in the summary of the original post. She filmed herself ripping off hijabs of women’s heads and then the police was investigating it and then she fucked off to Tel Aviv. I don’t get this thing where people comment without reading the OP, let alone the actual article.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yes, I did; what is she planning to do to Palestinians if she's going to Israel?

I don't get this thing where someone makes a comment, you respond that you don't think they read it, then asks you a question about the relevance and you ignore it and moan instead. But hey, as you were.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (8 children)

I think the implication is that an anti Muslim radical going to Israel is likely to support the current Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people.

[–] footoro 5 points 1 month ago

Yeah absolutely this. I don’t know how this is confusing to anyone.

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