BC woman captures survivor's guilt Iranian-Canadians feel amid protests (VIDEOS)

When Helia Jafari found out about the death of Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, she spent a week mourning in bed, alternating between crying and trying to continue with life.

Amini was just 22 years old when she lost her life — the same age as Jafari.

“That is such a bad feeling, just to know that somewhere, someone your age is murdered because she was showing two centimetres of hair,” she told Daily Hive.

Amini died in an Iranian hospital on September 16, after witnesses reportedly saw her beaten in a police van.

She allegedly failed to meet the country’s strict dress code that requires women to cover their hair with a headscarf and wear loose clothing.

Her death ignited massive protests across Iran, fuelling anger that had built up over decades of strict laws violently enforced against women under the country’s Islamic regime.

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“We’re dealing with a lot of survivor’s guilt”

Jafari moved to Canada from Iran when she was 18 years old.

Many of her family and friends are still back home, a home she says she can probably never return to.

While her friends are protesting on the streets of Iran — some of whom she says have been arrested — Jafari is one of hundreds of thousands of Iranian-Canadians watching and worrying from afar.

“We’re dealing with a lot of survivor’s guilt right now,” she expressed. “We’re living with so much more freedom than what people in Iran are experiencing right now, especially women, like myself.”

She contrasts her life in Canada — not being forced to wear any type of clothing, being able to study, or party — to Iran’s restrictive laws.

“It comes in waves of guilt to me,” added Jafari.

“Just remembering how my friends and family are experiencing so much oppression in Iran right now, and even worse, they are protesting to create a better life, yet I’m not there to help.”

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Harnessing the power of TikTok

That’s why she decided to harness the power of the internet to aid from afar.

Five days after Amini’s death, Jafari posted a TikTok raising awareness about the unrest in Iran.

She knew she had to grab people’s attention right from the beginning, so she used a tactic the internet loves to use, but for a good cause — clickbait.

“Kim said that????!!!” the caption reads as footage of James Corden interviewing Kim Kardashian plays for a couple of seconds.

Once Jafari assumes that the viewer’s hooked, that’s when she comes in with the facts.

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She says she has to use this gambit because, unfortunately, people won’t care otherwise.

“It’s kind of been normalized for Middle Eastern people to be suffering all the time, so no one cares that much anymore,” she said.

And it works. That TikTok has over two million views, and it’s only one of many in which Jafari engages and educates young people about what’s going on in her home country.

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How you can help

Jafari says staying informed and keeping the story alive is the best way to support the women-led protest movement in Iran right now.

“Just keep discussing this… keep it fresh in people’s brains, and also to continue pushing that international pressure to international governments to see what they can do to help us,” she said.

The biology student says she continues to use TikTok to update people on what’s happening, especially since news coming out of the country is unreliable.

She highlights two pieces of information that aren’t being widely reported right now.

One is how Iran has been accused of using minors to suppress anti-government protesters.

And the other is reports of Iran massacring Kurdish people in the city of Sanandaj.

Jafari says she’s thankful for the hundreds of people that have shared and interacted with her informative videos.

She urges Canadians to continue to share stories about Iran on social media.

“I realized that if you put some international pressure, and as you bring wider awareness, we can resolve the situation a bit quicker,” she said.