It’s only been two weeks since Ahoo Daryaei was bundled into a car by the authorities in Iran for defying draconian laws on forced veiling. Yet already, the woman many hoped would be the regime’s last victim looks more like its latest.

Footage of the thirty-year-old student walking defiantly through the campus in her underwear garnered international coverage. For a moment there was a feeling that underground dissent, stoked by social media sites banned in Iran, might boil over into action and topple the government.

Roland Oliphant and Akhtar Makoii reported for the Daily Telegraph that Iranian society was “on the edge”, that the detention of Daryaei had caused a surge of rage similar to when Masha Amini died following beatings by the morality police. Daryaei, like Amini two years before her, was accused of improper veiling. Across Europe protests outside embassies, largely led by women, demanded the release of Daryaei and an end to the brutal sharia regime which executes men for having sex with each other and punishes rape victims.

But then the US election happened. Images of Daryaei were quickly displaced by footage of democratic voters sobbing in their cars and the oafish Trump crowing about his victory. The news cycle has moved on. Now Daryaei is at risk of becoming just another of the 20,000 other Iranian citizens detained since the protests of 2022. While her fate is ultimately uncertain, it is a given that she will be interrogated and punished.

On Friday it was reported that Mehri Talebi Darestani, the head of the Women and Family Department of the Tehran Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, announced the creation of a “hijab removal treatment clinic.” She said the specialist facility will offer “scientific and psychological treatment for hijab removal”. The Islamic Azad University in Tehran where Daryaei was studying put out a statement claiming that she does not represent a security issue but is a “troubled individual” who is now receiving treatment.

The smearing of dissidents as mentally ill is a well-worn tactic of the Iranian state. A member of the European Network of Migrant Women (ENoMW) who fled Iran told me:

Iran’s government’s move to detain women in mental health facilities for breaking hijab rules is a terrifying new tactic to control women. Activists like Roshanak Molaei and Ahoo Daryaei have been targeted, with authorities using psychiatric detention to silence and discredit them.

This has happened despite some signs that the new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, would curb the control of the morality police. During his first press conference in September Pezeshkian promised women would not be punished for breaking the strict sharia dress code. Yet, the state apparatus which exists to monitor women who transgress religious codes remains omnipresent. Today an ever more extensive system of cameras, facial recognition software, reporting apps and number plate identification are in place to uphold laws designed to restrict women’s freedom. These are mediaeval codes enforced with modern technology. And those who join protests face vicious retribution.

One activist now outside Iran, Kosar Eftekhari, told the BBC:

I had joined a protest and I got into an argument with a group of Islamic forces. One officer started shooting at my genital area, at my body, with a paintball gun. He shot me in the eye with a smirk on his face and I heard the sound of my eye pop. I had lost my eye. I had gone blind.

The unknown fate of Daryaei, not to mention the innumerable protestors who have been blinded, beaten and killed by the Iranian regime, deserve more than a few tweets and some fleeting, quickly-forgotten articles. Yet Iranian dissidents present a problem for the mainstream left who might ordinarily jump on such an obvious cause. 

Oddly, the response of the mainstream left seems to be a resigned shrug of keffiyeh-draped shoulders. There are no regular mass demonstrations through London, nor widespread solidarity campaigns on campuses. And despite the punishment of homosexuality, there are also no high profile “Queers for Iranians” groups waving placards. Support for Iran remains excluded from the omnicause; oddly outside the sink hole that sucks in everything from sex workers’ rights to Gaza.

It is hard not to suspect this is because of an uncomfortable blind spot on the left. Across the West, progressives have a morbid fear of being accused of “isms” or “phobias”. And there is of course a hierarchy; racism is the worst, closely followed by Islamophobia. Transphobia trumps homophobia. And everything has more kudos than boring old sexism which, after all, only impacts those who might be useful as surrogates for gay men.

If Iran was a Christian theocracy, progressives would know who the enemy was. Yet there is a squeamishness about standing against obvious inhumanity when it comes wrapped in an amameh (Iranian clerical turban). Telling women what to wear, or blaming them when they are raped, is wrong. Unless the person doing it is a Muslim. Then one must display appropriate cultural sensitivity, decolonising one’s thoughts to avoid causing offence. Because if the great monolith of Muslims are alienated, they think, only whiteys will be left carrying Socialist Worker Party placards, and that would be a PR disaster. Such tokenism is, of course, offensive to everyone regardless of faith — not least to the Muslim women taking a stand against the brutality of the Iranian state.

Today, the morality police of Iran are on a hair trigger; those who stand against them deserve the support of the international community. Ultimately, the struggle for basic human rights should not hinge on geography, religion, or the narratives that fit comfortably within Western discourse. It requires confronting uncomfortable truths and championing those who risk everything for their freedom — even when the cost is our own ideological discomfort.