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Hugo Velazquez Perez Kovach and Ally Temple (2023) "Crystallized Exposure." This video presents a data visualization of one million posts collected from Twitter in November 2022 using the tag #MahsaAmini. Our aim was to determine how many hashtags were populated from the least to most significant by countries. We needed a way to depict the hashtag's popularity globally. Each crystalized structure represents a country/region. The cluster increases in size while the shape changes. Size represents the increase in the number of tweets.

 Jin, Jiyan, Azadi in Iran
(Woman, Life, Freedom)

On 16 September 2022, the 22-year-old Kurdish woman Jina (Mahsa) Amini died in a hospital in Tehran, Iran, under suspicious circumstances. The Guidance Patrol, the religious morality police of Iran's government, arrested Amini for allegedly not wearing the hijab in accordance with government standards. The Law Enforcement Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran stated that she had a heart attack at a police station, collapsed, and fell into a coma before being transferred to a hospital. However, eyewitnesses, including women who were detained with Amini, reported that she was severely beaten and that she died as a result of police brutality, which was denied by the Iranian authorities. The assertions of police brutality, in addition to leaked medical scans, led some observers to believe Amini had a cerebral hemorrhage or stroke due to head injuries received after her arrest.

The significance of her death is multi-layered. While the hashtag #MahsaAmini served as the largest category through which this story was shared across social media, her real Kurdish name was Jina.

As Soha Saghazadeh has guided us on the centrality of the name Jina and the Kurdish root of this chant, see "'Jîna:' Erasure of Kurdish Women and Their Politics from the Uprisings in Iran" by Farangis Ghaderi and Ozlem Goner. The extended version of this article has been published in IJMES, "Jin, Jiyan, Azadi and the Historical Erasure of Kurds." Also, find Jin, Jiyan, and Azadi articulated in transnational joint struggle in this collective statement: "Jin Jiyan Azadî, as in Free Palestine."

#MahsaAmini on Twitter 

RT @Action4IR: @WSJ @WSJopinion Hossein Ronaghi, an Iranian blogger, and human rights activist, is in danger. He is on a hunger strike whil…
RT @Action4IR: @TheDrIman Hossein Ronaghi's life is in danger. He has been jailed for more than 40 days while his two legs have been broken…
RT @Omid_M: Powerful remarks by the German chancellor @OlafScholz: “our principal focus is on all those responsible for this violence…we wa…
RT @Nikni23d: #NavidAfkari was wishing happiness for her mom and even when he was on the death row, he wanted happiness for her mom. Words…
RT @NashrAasoo: «#هما_دارابی ‌سال‌های سیاهی را پشت سر گذاشت تا در اعتراض به #حجاب_اجباری تن خویش و تنها سلاح باقی‌مانده برای مبارزه‌اش را…
RT @FattahiFarzad: مکانی که در این فیلم به آتش کشیده می‌شود، به گفته راوی، دفتر «سارا فلاحی»، نماینده ایلام در مجلس است #مهسا_امینی #Mahs…
@F_karamizand #MahsaAmini #مهسا_امینی کوکتل برای حوزه‌های کوکتل برای مصللا ها کوکتل برای پایگاه بسیج کوکتل برای پایگاه سپاه کوکتل برای ماشین سرکوب کوکتل برای دفتر نمایندگان اگر بچه اعدام بشن کوکتل برای خانه های شناسایی شده و خانواده هاشون https://t.co/RBilacfbsg
RT @iransecularism1: Jailed Iran activist Hossein Ronaghi escalates hunger strike: Brother https://t.co/WhmQSrmxDf #مهسا_امینی #MahsaAmini…
RT @OpenSociety: “We’ve never had a situation like this where the entire country rises up in support of a woman.” - @sussantweets of @femen…
RT @HichkasOfficial: #ElhamAfkari who's been kidnapped by the Islamic Republic, is on hunger strike. IR's accused her of working with @Iran…
RT @RoyaTheWriter: Insert Iranian for Ukrainian and the statement will be just as true. #SlavaUkraini #MahsaAmini
RT @FaridVahiid: Que s'est-il passé en prison pour #YaldaAghaFazli, 19 ans, pleine de vie, pour qu’elle se suicide seulement deux jours apr…

Network Visualization on half a million tweets on #MahsaAmini circulating among 60,000 users in November 2022. The red tweets are in Farsi, the green are English, and the white are French.

Resources

Laila Shereen Sakr

Assistant Professor

Department of Film and Media

UC Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106

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laila at r-shief dot org

© 2022 created by VJ Um Amel. Developer - Josh Bevan,  

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