Meghan Markle donned a message of support for the anti-government protesters in Iran on Tuesday with a t-shirt bearing their famous slogan meaning “woman, life, freedom”, the Daily Mail reported.
Making a surprise appearance at a private event for women at Spotify’s headquarters in Los Angeles, the Duchess of Sussex wore a plain black t-shirt emblazoned with the three words in Persian.
Markle’s appearance at the Women@Spotify event, alongside the Iranian president of her charity Archewell, Mandana Dayani, is one of many international shows of support for Iranians that made use of the “woman, life, freedom” mantra.
The slogan, which has united dissidents in cities across the Islamic Republic in the ongoing protests for more than a month, is translated from the Kurdish “jin, jîyan, azadî,” a mantra used by women fighters who helped defeat the Islamic State in northern Syria.
And it was a Kurdish woman, 22-year-old Jîna (Mahsa) Amini, whose death on 16 September kickstarted the protests against Iran’s theocratic rulers.
Amini had been visiting relatives in Tehran when she was reportedly arrested and severely beaten by Iran’s notorious morality police for an alleged violation of the country’s strict dress code for women.
Her death days later triggered uprisings in cities in her native Kurdistan province in western Iran, as well as mass protests across the country. The demonstrations and open acts of defiance are still ongoing in spite of violent and often lethal interventions by security forces.
