Israeli singer Rita voices support for Iranian women

Israeli singer Rita is voicing support for Iranian demonstrators who took to the streets to protest the cruelties of the Mullah regime and its morality police.

In an interview on i24NEWS show "The Rundown" that aired on Sunday, the Iranian-born songstress said that her messaging with Iranians shows that they support Israel and the Israeli people. 

"It is very important for me as a woman to support those women in Iran because it affects everywhere that women are depressed," Rita said.

"We have to give them power and strength to be free."

The protests, which swept across the country and resulted in dozens of deaths, are in response to the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman arrested for breaching Iran's strict rules on religious clothing. 

Rita said she received thousands of messages after recording a video in support of protesters last week.

"They sent me thousands of messages on Instagram until the authorities shut down the internet. They told me, 'Please be our voice,'" Rita said.

While she is widely known by the mononym Rita, the singer's surname is Yahan-Farouz; her family left Iran when she was aged eight.

"We immigrated nine years before the revolution, so we lived in a country that really wanted to westernize," she recalled.

"The time will come when we can be in friendship," Rita said, referring to Israelis and Iranians. "We have no reason to be enemies."