DR Farrokhroo Parsa was a trailblazer. And she paid for it with her life.

A physician and – like her mother, who founded the women’s rights magazine Jahan-e Zanan in the 1920s – a feminist, she fought relentlessly for gender equality in Iran, petitioning for women’s suffrage and pushing for progressive legislation. For a time, there were signs the country was moving in the right direction. In 1968, Parsa was appointed Minister of Education, becoming the first woman to occupy a cabinet position in the Iranian Parliament. Soon afterwards, the government even introduced its first-ever Minister of Women’s Affairs. But a little more than a decade later, in 1980, Farrokhroo Parsa was bundled into a burlap sack and shot to death. Her crime? She refused to wear a headscarf.

When I heard the tragic news about Mahsa Amini’s brutal killing last month, I was upset. But I was not surprised. I am half-Iranian, so grew up hearing stories about women who were beaten up because their chador or hijab didn’t adequately cover every single strand of their hair, or handed razor-laced tissues by the Basiji (morality police) to remove their lipstick with. I was told how it was against the law for women to sing in public, and that they could be arrested for dancing. For a child growing up in Lanarkshire, this was difficult to digest. I knew it was true, yet it was impossible to imagine.

As I got older, I learned about how patriarchal norms dictate every sphere of an Iranian woman’s life. The legal age of marriage is 13 for girls, 15 for boys. Women have a much harder time obtaining a divorce than men. Married women require permission from their husband to get a passport or leave the country. And if they are victims of domestic or sexual abuse, they will receive little in the way of support or protection. In fact, last year, three women from three separate Iranian prisons were executed because they had murdered their violent husbands in self-defence.

We couldn’t afford flights to my dad’s home city of Tehran when I was younger, and part of me – a big part – was relieved. Being mixed race invites a confluence of identity anyway, but to be Iranian and liberal-minded is a duality of its own: on one side, a fierce pride and admiration for a country richly threaded with beauty and history; on the other, disgust for a misogynistic, murderous regime that for the past four decades has funded terrorism, sanctioned government corruption and strangled the human rights and spirit of a nation. The latter, and the dangers associated with it (particularly because of my job), have prevented me from visiting as an adult and forced millions of Iranians into exile from their homeland, separated from their families and friends.

Those who have stayed have to varying degrees suffered, and nobody more so than Iranian women. Speak to any Iranian person you know and they will have a story for you about the morality police, who lurk and prowl, instilling fear in citizens – women, mostly – as they go about their everyday business. A friend of mine once met up with two of her cousins (one male, one female) in a park one hot summer’s day and was stopped by the police because according to Islamic law, a woman cannot sit side-by-side with a male cousin (or vice versa). They were taken to a detention facility and forced to sign a document filled with false declarations; that my friend’s hijab wasn’t worn correctly, that she had an illegal relationship with her cousin. They were then told to attend a "re-education centre" to rectify the mistakes they hadn’t made. All because of a jog in the park.

This happened during the Green Movement, the last significant wave of anti-government protests that swept the country in 2009 following the fraudulent re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Kids were detained by the morality police for weeks on end; dissidents given lengthy prison sentences or executed; protesters arrested, beaten and raped. Neda Agha-Soltan, a 26-year-old woman, became a symbol of the movement when she was shot in the heart by a sniper. But the regime cracked down with great ferocity and its persistent methods of repression – from violence to digital surveillance – eventually won out.

Could it be different this time? It certainly feels that way. It has now been almost five weeks since Mahsa Amini died, sparking intense protests and demonstrations across Iran. Courageous women are on the front line of the revolt, whipping off their headscarves, burning them and waving them in the air. Men are right by their side, defending women against the morality police. Interestingly, they have also been joined by women who are veiled by choice. This fight is not being waged against religion or politics but rather an oppressive system that has stripped people of their fundamental human rights. Iranian authorities will continue to use brute force and internet blackouts in a bid to smother the protests, but will their tactics work when so many people are passionately united in their desire for freedom and equality?

Before Dr Farrokhroo Parsa was killed, she wrote a letter to her children from prison. It read: “I am a doctor, so I have no fear of death. Death is only a moment and no more. I am prepared to receive death with open arms rather than live in shame by being forced to be veiled. I am not going to bow to those who expect me to express regret for 50 years of my efforts for equality between men and women. I am not prepared to wear the chador and step back in history.”

Those efforts were not in vain.

Dr Parsa may not be here today, but her legacy can be seen in the astonishing bravery of the women at the forefront of the Iranian uprising. Whether it will lead to another revolution remains to be seen, but I can think of no more fitting a way for this regime to be overthrown. After decades of stepping back, it is time to leap forward. Women, Life, Freedom. Zan, Zendegi, Azadi.

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