Raha Akhavan, an accomplished open water swimmer and university professor, started a 10-hour swim around Manhattan Island this morning.
She is swimming in honor of Mahsa Amini and to support Iranian women and protesters with eye injuries.
Akhavan’s goal is to swim the full 48.5 kilometers of the Manhattan coastline in 10 hours. She is accompanied by a support boat and a guide from the New York Open Water Organization.
We are proud to support #Raha_Akhavan who is swimming around Manhattan #20_bridges_swim raising awareness about the victims of the protests in Iran! Go Raha!https://t.co/lslaAZ8AnE pic.twitter.com/8qXV6Zg5za
— IranWire (@IranWireEnglish) August 31, 2023
The US-born Akhavan embarked at 730am EST. Her swim will take her along the East River, Harlem River and Hudson River, passing beneath 20 bridges linking Manhattan to Brooklyn, Queens and New Jersey.
"I will be thinking about all the people who have inspired me throughout the past year. All the ones who lost their lives, all the ones who got injured, all the ones who went to the street despite all the risks," she said before jumping into the water.
"I'm very happy that as a citizen I can do my social responsibility. What I can do is to raise my voice. Raise the voice of the women of Iran who are fighting for their basic right of living their free life, wearing what they want to wear, having equal rights as men," she added.
In an interview with IranWire last month, Akhavan described the oppression she faced as a girl and a woman in Iran, and pays tribute to the victims of the Islamic Republic’s bloody crackdown on last year’s nationwide protests demanding more freedoms and women’s rights, particularly those who have lost their eyes in the violence.
The epic 20 Bridges Swim is part of the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming, an ultra-marathon swimming challenge that also includes a successful solo completion of the Catalina Channel (between Santa Catalina Island and the Southern California mainland) and the English Channel.
Akhavan has already swum the Catalina Channel and says she is also planning to take on another challenge: swimming the English Channel in the near future.
As she began her training in the fall of 2022, Iran was rattled by popular protests sparked by the September death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
“As [part of the] Iranian diaspora, and a woman who grew up in Iran during the 80s and 90s I couldn’t help but deeply sympathise. I was taken to the same detention center [in Tehran] where Mahsa Amini was beaten to death, several times,” she said.
Inspired by a poignant photo of three young women who had lost an eye during the protests, Akhavan regained the strength to return to training.
One of Raha Akhwan's most important goals is to collect financial assistance for victims who have been blinded in one or both eyes by the oppressors of the Islamic Republic.
These donations will be given to the non-profit organization Malteser in Mainz, Germany, to be used for their medical and legal needs.
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