Influential Iranian Women: Marzieh Ebrahimi (1989-)

When we talk about acid attacks in Iran, many names come to mind, most of them women who were targeted by angry men in their community, perhaps even by someone in their family. They were disfigured forever and, in many cases, lost their eyesight.

One of these women, however, refused to surrender to the misery that the attackers had envisioned for her.

On that bitter day when she was attacked in Isfahan in 2014, Marzieh Ebrahimi was just 25 years old. When she glanced in the rearview mirror of her car to check her parking, she had no idea that, in just a few seconds, her life was going to change.

Speaking at an event at Amir Kabir University years after the incident, Ebrahimi recalled: “I never saw them. I don’t know what they look like. I don’t know how old they are. I don’t know if they had a problem with me or with my hijab. But I do know one thing very well: I want to talk to them. I want to see them and stare into their eyes, and ask them, ‘Why? Why an acid attack? Why me?’”

Despite the scars on her face and on her heart, Ebrahimi is a beautiful woman who also resembles a phoenix. Burned by the acid flung across her face, she was born again from the ashes and has now started a new life.

Nine years ago at least four women were targeted by acid attacks in Isfahan after Yousef Tabatabaei-Nejad, a representative of the Supreme Leader and Isfahan’s Friday Imam, made public remarks about women’s non-adherence to hijab at an event to mark Ashura. “Giving a warning [for non-compliance] is not enough any more,” he said. “We should raise the stick and use force to combat bad hijab.” The lives of the women who were attacked in the aftermath were changed forever.

Rising from the Ashes

Ebrahimi comes from a large family. She was a tough girl who had experienced hardship in her life even before the acid attack. But she was also very preoccupied by her appearance: “My family was concerned with finding the attacker and worried about me regaining my health. But more than anything else, they were worried about how I was going to handle this, considering how sensitive I was about my face and beauty.”

“Marzieh is only 25,” her brother told Etemad newspaper seven months after the incident. “She was a midwife in a hospital before all this happened. She had plans. Thank God, she is still motivated. But she is not the same; she is not living her life with the same passion and excitement as before.”

In the horrendous first few months after the incident, people close to Ebrahimi said she was traumatised. She kept the car window rolled all the way up even if it was very hot inside the vehicle, and the honk of motorcycle horns or the sound of exhaust pipes scared her. She didn’t want to pursue her case against the attacker herself, delegating this instead to her brother.

Gradually, however, Ebrahimi came back to life - and this time, it was not only for herself. While she was far from the first woman to be viciously targeted by an acid attacker in Iran, and would not be the last, she decided to take a stand and make a difference. “There was a moment when I realised it wasn’t the acid that was burning my face,” she would later recall. “It was a heap of pains all piled together: a pain that wasn’t a whine or a wail any more, but was turning into a loud cry.”

Ebrahimi became the voice of many men and women. She became a symbol for standing up to acid attacks, having decided that rather than being a victim and isolating herself from society, she would represent the survivors.

In 2018, as she was turning 29, Ebrahimi took part in a photoshoot with a young photographer named Negar Masoudi. The resultant images were displayed in an exhibition at the Iranian Artists’ Forum in Tehran. Two of the pictures in particular grabbed visitors’ attention and were widely shared online. The first features Ebrahimi’s half burned face in front of a black background, and in it she is wearing a crimson scarf. The second depicts her in a white wedding dress: an arresting image that conveys hope for a better future and the passion for life that resides in the hearts of both Ebrahimi and her husband.

For Ebrahimi the sole motive for taking part in this exhibition was to see restrictions or an outright ban imposed on the buying and selling of acid in Iran. “I spoke out because I didn’t want to remain a victim,” she says. “I wanted to fight back. This was the main reasoning that gave shape to the idea of collaborating with Negar Masoudi.”

Since then she has focused her efforts on getting new restrictions approved. “We have been working hard to convince our representatives of the need for such legislation,” she has said. “No one thinks about this momentary rage and fury, [or how it] could take away lives. When we are angry, we might throw things at each other... But acid leaves its imprint on your body forever. In an angry society there should be limits on the purchasing and sale of these substances.”

In May 2019 Ebrahimi and three other acid attack victims went to the Iranian parliament and spoke to MPs about the urgency of their request. During the visit Ebrahimi told them: “On behalf of four victims from Isfahan, I inform you that so far we haven’t received a response [about our attackers] and there has been no atonement. It has been five years since the incident. I am not here to complain, but to ask for your support in increasing the punishment for this crime and decreasing the likelihood of acid attacks.”

At the meeting MP Zahra Saeedi-Mobarakeh, who represents Mobarakeh county in Isfahan, tried to be funny, joking with Ebrahimi: “You got away good. You only lost half of your face. What happened to the attacker?”

Ebrahimi was surprised to learn that Saeedi-Mobarakeh was an elected representative for Isfahan. “I’m so sorry to hear you’re the MP from Isfahan,” she responded, “but you don’t even know the acid attackers weren’t identified.”

Justice but not Retribution

Despite all the pain and suffering her injuries caused her, Ebrahimi has said she refuses to fight fire with fire. “I don’t want qisas [retribution] or execution,” she has said. “I want the attacker to be put in jail for life. Violence should not be answered with more violence. These people are more afraid of imprisonment.”

Ebrahimi asserts that her husband's decision not to leave her after the attack was humane and logical, not born out of pity. She no longer has any hope of finding the attackers and no longer attends court. Life goes on for her. She continues her treatment and often visits others like her who have partially lost their faces.

But in October 2020 Ebrahimi was forced to speak out again on the issue. Isfahan’s Friday Imam, undeterred by the atrocities of 2014, made further incendiary comments on veiling on October 2. At a meeting with the Intelligence and Security deputy of the armed forces of Isfahan province, Yousef Tabatabaei-Nejad declared: “Society should be made to be insecure for women who unveil. They should not be allowed to break the norms so easily on the streets.”

Together with another acid attack victim, Soheila Joarkesh, Ebrahimi reacted angrily to the comments like dozens of other social media users. What Tabatabaei-Nejad had said was a knife in the tired bodies and souls of victims, reminding them that the perpetrators of these terrible crimes were still at large - and there was still no will to catch them.

“In those days [2014],” Ebrahimi wrote on her Instagram page, “fear had taken over the whole city. Fear of going out, fear of the streets. That’s all they wanted. And it is happening again.

“It is our right to walk in the streets of our city without any fear. It is our right to live without terror. We are not hostages. We are citizens.”

In rising phoenix-like from the ashes of a dreadful crime, in speaking out about what happened to her and supporting other survivors of acid attacks, Ebrahimi remains an inspiration for Iranian women and victims of violence the world over.