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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
The death of a young Iranian woman in police custody1 continues to reverberate2
The woman who died in police custody setting off protests across Iran was Kurdish, and her case highlights the second-class status of nearly 10% of the country's people.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Today, we have a little more of the story of a woman who died in police custody in Iran, triggering weeks of protest. Mahsa Amini was 22 years old. She was a member of Iran's Kurdish minority, a group that has faced discrimination for a long time. Family and friends knew her by her Kurdish name, Gina. Here's NPR's Peter Kenyon.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
PETER KENYON, BYLINE4: Despite the internet crackdown imposed by the government in Tehran, some videos are still being posted showing demonstrators, often led by women, defying the security forces to protest Mahsa Amini's death. Her family rejects the official explanation that she fainted and died of natural causes, saying she was beaten. The drama has captivated Iranians at home and abroad. Soma (ph), a Kurdish activist5 who left Iran for Europe several years ago out of fear she would be arrested if she stayed, asked that her family name not be used still for fear of repercussions6 from the government. She says, for as long as she can remember, Iranians from different ethnic7 groups - Persians, Azerbaijanis and others - have struggled to work together, especially with the Kurds.
SOMA: It's the first time we have all the country, different ethnicities, the different nations gathering8 and chanting for the same aim, for the same demands, political demands. It's the first time.
KENYON: Soma also says these demonstrations9 are notable in another way. They move beyond purely10 political demands to call for something that might seem ordinary to outsiders, not just a normal life, but a joyful11 life.
SOMA: Yes, exactly, because, you know, one of the things is really being oppressed and banned by the government is the right to have a joyful life. A right to life, but especially to have a joyful life, because the sad life is completely recognized by the government. But the joyful life is completely banned.
KENYON: Vera Eccarius-Kelly, a professor of international relations at Siena College in New York, says the unrest in Kurdish provinces reflects what she calls the growing feeling among Iranians that the regime is, quote, "profoundly illegitimate."
VERA ECCARIUS-KELLY: It is losing public support and control. I am deeply impressed by the courage of so many protesters throughout Iran, but in particular in the Kurdish provinces, where women are taking off the hijab in the street and protesting. They're burning hijab publicly. They're cutting their hair publicly.
KENYON: Eccarius-Kelly says Kurds have long faced discrimination. They're Iran's third largest ethnic group, comprising roughly 10% of the population. Beyond that, she says, the fact that they are not majority Shia Muslims, like Iran's ruling class, has made them a target for suspicion and repression12.
ECCARIUS-KELLY: So they are profoundly discriminated13 against because - not only because they're Kurdish, but because the Iranian regime is afraid of the size of this minority.
KENYON: She says Mahsa Amini, like many Iranian Kurds, wasn't even allowed to officially use her Kurdish name, Gina, instead having to use the name accepted by the Iranian state. She has little doubt these protests will continue because what Mahsa Amini did was no different from what huge numbers of Iranian women do every day, commit a small act of protest by showing a bit more hair under their hijab.
ECCARIUS-KELLY: That's why a lot of women and young people in Iran in general are saying, well, you know, it could have been me. And it could have been me means we need to push back because it will be me if we don't resist now.
KENYON: Iran's supreme14 leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has now weighed in on the protests, condemning15 them as plots engineered by the U.S. and Israel. Iran's Kurdish minority, along with much of the country, is watching to see what that may mean for the official response to this uprising.
Peter Kenyon, NPR News, Istanbul.
(SOUNDBITE OF B-SIDE'S "JUST DON'T CARE")
1 custody | |
n.监护,照看,羁押,拘留 | |
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2 reverberate | |
v.使回响,使反响 | |
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3 transcript | |
n.抄本,誊本,副本,肄业证书 | |
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4 byline | |
n.署名;v.署名 | |
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5 activist | |
n.活动分子,积极分子 | |
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6 repercussions | |
n.后果,反响( repercussion的名词复数 );余波 | |
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7 ethnic | |
adj.人种的,种族的,异教徒的 | |
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8 gathering | |
n.集会,聚会,聚集 | |
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9 demonstrations | |
证明( demonstration的名词复数 ); 表明; 表达; 游行示威 | |
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10 purely | |
adv.纯粹地,完全地 | |
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11 joyful | |
adj.欢乐的,令人欢欣的 | |
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12 repression | |
n.镇压,抑制,抑压 | |
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13 discriminated | |
分别,辨别,区分( discriminate的过去式和过去分词 ); 歧视,有差别地对待 | |
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14 supreme | |
adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的 | |
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15 condemning | |
v.(通常因道义上的原因而)谴责( condemn的现在分词 );宣判;宣布…不能使用;迫使…陷于不幸的境地 | |
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