We won't rest until the cruel regime is deposed and our country is free Golriz Ghahraman

Being an Iranian woman is a heavy birthright. It comes with knowing a true, deep, feminism, while also knowing violent oppression at the hand of the government ruling our homeland.

- 

And for millions of us, it means displacement.

My parents and I were granted political asylum in Aotearoa New Zealand when I was nine years old. We were never to return to Iran. Like most Iranian refugees, as long as the Islamic regime remains in power, our fear of persecution persists.

We have missed the births and death of loved ones. But what the world has learned over the past 60+ days of revolution in Iran is that exiled Iranians have never lost our fervent connection with the plight of our people back home.

I hope that sends a chill down the spine of the Iranian regime.

What is stunning is that our movement today is global, led by the breathtaking courage of protesters in Iran and amplified by Iranians around the world. None of us have slept a full night in the two months since the death of Mahsa Amini, the young Kurdish woman who died in the custody of the "morality police" after being arrested under hijab laws. She became a symbol of our pain. Every one of us has known the violence of that regime. Every Iranian knows someone flogged, detained, tortured, or killed.