Inside the Iranian Uprising

This is Iran.

A country where young people film

and share their lives every day on social media.

This is also Iran,

an Islamic republic ruled by a supreme religious leader,

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In September 2022,

anti-government protests swept across the coountry

after the death of a young woman in police custody.

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In the crackdown that followed,

human rights groups estimate

more than 500 Iranians have been killed,

including 72 children.

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Since the start,

young Iranians have been filming the violence themselves

and posting it online.

(weapon firing, people screaming)

Independent and foreign media are largely banned here, but

"Frontline" has been able to gather

and review over a hundred hours of this footage,

cross-checking it with testimony

from eyewitnesses and protesters...

The sound of the guy breathing while he raped me

still echoes in my ears.

...and following activists and exiles

who are trying to expose what is happening in Iran.

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Awin Mostafazadeh is a human rights activist

who fled Iran in 2007.

For years, her organization has been working with reporters

and other activists inside Iran,

documenting abuses against the Kurdish minority.

On September 13, 2022,

she got news from Tehran that a young Kurdish woman

named Mahsa "Zhina" Amini was in a coma

after being beaten by Iran's morality police.

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(device beeps, object bumping in video)

Mahsa, who was also known

by her Kurdish name, Zhina, was 22 years old

and about to start university.

She'd come to Tehran on a day trip.

The morality police-- enforcers of Iran's Islamic dress code--

had arrested her accusing her of

not being covered appropriately.

As word spread, people began to gather near the hospital.

Some were filming on their phones.

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(continues shouting, woman sobbing)

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(traffic humming, car horn honks)

Shiva Nazarahari is a human rights activist

who was jailed four times in Iran

for anti-government activities.

She fled the country in 2018,

and has been working from exile in Europe.

She agreed to let us film her gathering testimony

about what happened after Mahsa Amini fell into a coma.

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Leyla is speaking from inside Iran.

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Leyla says she rushed to the hospital

after she saw the photo of Mahsa Amini in a coma

on Instagram, and found the crowd of protesters gathering there.

The scene was captured on footage we obtained.

On September 16,

news got out that Mahsa Amini had died.

A female journalist got into the hospital

and photographed her grieving relatives.

The picture spread quickly on Twitter.

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The Iranian government did not grant

any interviews for this film,

or respond to a list of questions.

Shortly after Mahsa Amini's death, Tehran's police released

edited CCTV footage of her collapsing at a police station.

They denied beating her and said she'd had a heart attack,

and they'd done everything to keep her alive.

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Before her death, videos showing abuses

by the morality police had been circulating

on Iranian social media,

fueling resentment against the regime.

In some cases, the government said

it had punished officers involved.

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At the funeral in the Kurdish town of Saqqez,

mourners began to chant, "Woman, life, freedom."

It would become the slogan of a new movement

which would quickly spread beyond the Kurdish minority

and rally women across the country.

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After footage of the funeral

spread on social media, women took to the streets,

filming their own acts of defiance.

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(car horns honking, people whistling)

The protests began to spread around the country.

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In the weeks that followed,

women across Iran removed their hijabs.

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(crowd clapping in rhythm and chanting)

Before Iran became an Islamic republic,

it was ruled by the Western-backed

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

His regime was repressive,

and employed a brutal security service

that imprisoned opponents.

But women had the right

to dress freely

and be a substantial part of the workforce.

After a revolution in 1979,

Ayatollah Khomeini took power

and the constitution was rewritten

to reflect Islamic law.

The hijab was made compulsory for all women in public.

In Iran, women marched in support of a modern identity.

The shah pulled the chador down by force.

These people are putting it up by force.

Men eventually attacked the protesters.

Several of the women who stood their ground

with considerable courage were stabbed.

In the decades that followed,

women have repeatedly risen up in protest.

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But Iran remains an authoritarian Islamic state

under a supreme leader,

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has refused

to grant women more freedoms.

After the death of Mahsa Amini,

he dismissed the protests as a plot by Iran's enemies.

Iranian authorities said

they were investigating what happened to Mahsa Amini.

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But the unrest continued to spread.

Protesters were burning their hijabs

and sharing the footage with the world.

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Zar Amir Ebrahimi

was once a famous TV actor in Iran.

In 2008, she fled the country

after a private intimate video was leaked.

She was sentenced to 99 lashes

and banned from appearing on television.

She is now an international movie star.

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Zar has been gathering testimony

from inside Iran

about the uprising, and sharing it with journalists

and human rights organizations.

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Nasrin had a teenage daughter, Nika.

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(singing, audience clapping and cheering)