Two of the best-known TV presenters and entertainers in Germany support the system-critical protest movement in Iran: Joko Winterscheidt and Klaas Heufer-Umlauf gave away their personal Instagram accounts to two Iranian activists. Together they have almost two million followers.
The two ProSieben moderators announced the solidarity campaign on Wednesday evening in the program “Joko and Klaas 15 minutes live”, which is available at Joyn under the title “Awareness for the #IranRevolution”.. As many times before, they earned this quarter of an hour of broadcasting time in their ProSieben game show – they were allowed to design it as they wished. They often used the time for social issues, showed a short documentary about the living conditions in the Greek Moria camp, let nursing staff, a long-Covid patient or a Sea Watch captain have their say. Not infrequently, these are the qualitative highlights of German private television. But sometimes they just do silly things.
This time they showed a brief warning about violent images. This was followed by minutes of prime-time footage of the protests in Iran and images of how brutally security forces are cracking down on them. In short interviews, they also introduced the two women who will be using their Instagram accounts in the future.
Women’s rights activist Azam Jangravi, who had to flee after a protest against compulsory headscarves in Iran, posts on Joko Winterscheidt’s account, 43. The account of Klaas Heufer-Umlauf, 39, is now being used by Sarah Ramani of the “The Voice of the Streets” movement for messages. “We can’t talk to Europe’s governments, but you can,” appealed Ramani, who dared not show her face.
“So much changes every day,” said Joko Winterscheidt. “And if our attention is to be effective, it must be sustained and reliable. We want the protests in our world to remain perceptible and our joint observation to become part of the international pressure backdrop that is currently forming on the Internet.”
Given away, “forever”
That’s why, according to Klaas, you give away your own reach to the two women, “forever”. Everything he and his fellow moderators can think of to post is not worth much compared to the protests in Iran. The worst that could happen is that no one is looking. The reach of the two Instagram accounts has increased by hundreds of thousands of followers since the broadcast.
The trigger for the system-critical mass protests in Iran was the death of the 22-year-old Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini. The vice squad arrested her for allegedly violating Islamic dress codes. The woman died in police custody on September 16. Since her death, thousands have been demonstrating across the country against the government’s repressive course and the Islamic system of rule. In Berlin, too, tens of thousands of people took to the streets last Saturday under the motto “Women, Life, Freedom” to express their solidarity.