I am a Sudanese woman - protests in Iran reflect my own history tangled with clothing and freedom | Basma Khalifa

On September 16, Mahsa Amini was arrested by Iranian vice police after allegedly wearing her hijab incorrectly and wearing skinny jeans. Later that night, she died in their custody. Amini's family claim the vice squad beat her to death, a charge they have since denied. What followed were the largest protests in the country in recent years. Iranians of all ages, ethnicities and genders joined the protests. I also watched and paid my dues by posting on social media, but couldn't help but reflect on my own relationship with clothes - and freedom.

Can you be free and wear hijab? It is worn by many of my family and friends, and it was always presented to me as a choice when I was young. Modesty, however, was more important. I am of Sudanese origin but I grew up in Northern Ireland where, as a teenager, it was not fashionable to cover up. I spent years fighting with my parents, who told me that I showed too much skin, that I should never show my cleavage or my belly. In the late 1990s, fashion shifted from crop tops to full length t-shirts. I remember my mom's relief that we wouldn't have to go through the "go change" conversation every time I wanted to leave the house.

But one day, in my late teens, I was sifting through old photo albums. I found a 1950s black and white photo of my mother and her sisters in Sudan, standing side by side wearing shift dresses, and all I could see were shoulders and knees. Double standards made no sense. Later, I asked my mother about it, expressing my frustration at the hypocrisy. She was a bit at a loss for words as she tried to explain how the cultural and religious climate in Sudan had changed over the years. Leaving the conversation muddled, I decided to dig a little deeper.

In the mid-1970s in Saudi Arabia, a religious police was created as the clergy received the power over public space. In Sudan, President Jaafar Nimeiry, who came to power in 1969 through a left-wing coup, ended up imposing Sharia in 1983. In the following years, with the formation of a Sudanese religious police in the early 1990s, the spaces of relative freedom in which my mother had once dressed had closed. Religious police currently operate in various forms in many Muslim countries, from Nigeria to Somalia to Afghanistan. What could have started as the imposition of simple modest dress became, in extreme cases, a full burqa with a face covering. In all kinds of societies, leaders have established that religious law is a useful tool for exerting control.

Talking to my mother about this, I could hear the humming in her voice as I asked her about her own choices. She told me she believed in modesty, that liberal dress was a thing of the past. She clearly explained how women in government jobs could not come to work if they did not wear a hijab. As she spoke, I began to understand how attitudes change over time, progress is not one-sided, and how “rules” and cultures can vary. There is such a fine line between modesty being an expression of a personal connection to faith and the result of patriarchy.