23rd Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest People
Woman, Life, Freedom

Two years ago, during the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement in Iran — a feminist uprising where women and men took to the streets to protest restrictions on women’s dress — powerful images of resistance were created across the country. This photograph was taken exactly two years after those events, in one of the central neighborhoods of Tabriz. On the wall, traces of that time remain: a protest slogan written by demonstrators, later defaced by the police, and beneath it, a new message in support of the government. In front of this wall stand two young women who now walk freely with the kind of clothing that, just two years earlier, was considered a crime.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 12.2024
Date Uploaded: 10.2025
Photo Location: Tabriz, Iran
Camera: Canon EOS R
Copyright: © Reza Javanshir