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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 @Limportant_fr: «Mère de Navid, Habib, Vahid, Saeed et Elham, nous sommes tous avec vous. Sachez que vos enfants sont honorables. Nous a…
RT @shahinnajafi80: نگوییم ۴۴ سال؛ ۱۴۰۰ سال تلاش کردند تا ما را از وتاریخ و هویت‌مان دور کنند. ملتی که گذشته‌ی خود را نشناسد معنای آینده را…
افسوس! که باز از در تو دور بماندیم هیهات! که از وصل تو مهجور بماندیم #MahsaAmini #مهسا_امینی
RT @NazaninBoniadi: Shocking and devastating. Thank you dear @Sima_Sabet for all you do to shine a light on what’s happening in Iran. #Mahs…
گر چه دل خون کنی از خاک درت نگریزیم جز تو فریادرسی کو که درو آویزیم؟ #MahsaAmini #مهسا_امینی
RT @__Injaneb96: Let's do this, all of us, everywhere in the world. In the memory of Khodanour Lajaei. #خدانور #مهسا_امینی #NoNIAC #Mahs…
@SafaiDarya والله سر ناموس خودمون رو می بُریم 👆🏻جایگاه "زن" توی حکومت اسلامی #مهسا_امینی #MahsaAmini
شما بنویس ”شیرمرد“ ما میخونیم”خایه مال“ نکته پاورقی: به ذهن متفکرت نرسید، این که میگی فقط دو تا ، داری عملاً آبروی “نظام مقدس“ را میبری 😁🤦🏻‍♂️ نابغه کدوم زیر خایه بودی تو #حسین_رونقی #توماج_صالحی #نه_به_جمهوري_اسلامی #زن_زندگی_آزادی #عمامه_پرانی #IranianRevolution #mahsaami̇ni̇ https://t.co/X2ngQv1uRv
RT @nixie9h: Hossein Ronaghi is in real danger, he has dedicated his life to being the voice to the Iranian people from Iran. Please be his…
#MAHSAAMINI #مهسا_امینی‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌ https://t.co/jlLfqXG9Ar
RT @ManotoNews: «برای انقلاب جدید صلوات» #مهسا_امینی #mahsaamini https://t.co/mNHuJ1dzAJ
RT @1500tasvir_en: Hamid Afkari, Elham and #NavidAfkari’s brother, was arrested a few minutes ago in front of No. 100 detention center in S…

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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