Protests in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini
Rights — di Luigi Mastrodonato
On 16 September, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman in the custody of the religious police, died. And Iran took to the streets to protest against the regime.
Protests in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini
On 16 September, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman in the custody of the religious police, died. And Iran took to the streets to protest against the regime.
- Mahsa Amini had been arrested by the religious police in Tehran for not wearing the veil correctly.
- She died after several days in custody. According to the authorities it was a heart attack, but witnesses speak of abuse and violence.
- Within days the protest spread across the whole of Iran. The targets are the religious police and the Islamist fundamentalist regime.
For several days Iran has been shaken by widespread protests that have already claimed at least 26 lives. It all began with the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old from Iranian Kurdistan, after she had been stopped by the religious police in Tehran for not wearing the veil correctly. Iranian authorities played down the incident, describing it as a natural death, but several pieces of evidence and witness accounts suggest it may be a case of state murder.
People took to the streets in memory of the young woman, but the mobilisation quickly grew to a national scale, becoming a collective denunciation of the religious fundamentalism of the Iranian regime as well as of the country's difficult economic conditions.
The death of Mahsa Amini
Mahsa Amini was a 22-year-old from Iranian Kurdistan. She was in Tehran with her family to visit some relatives when she was stopped by the religious police for not wearing the hijab, the Islamic veil, in accordance with the country's strict rules. Some witnesses said the woman was beaten by officers inside their van. She was then taken away for a "re-education" session.
Mahsa Amini died three days later, on 16 September. According to the Iranian authorities she suffered a heart attack, but her family disputes this account given that the woman had never had any health problems. A photograph taken at the hospital, where she was transferred following the police stop, shows her with several bandages around her face, as though she had indeed been struck. Some images circulating online show her with a number of bruises.
Mahsa Amini, 22, is in a coma after being tortured by Iranian authorities.
This would be unacceptable no matter what, but the fact that she was arrested for improper wearing of the hijab makes it even more horrifying.
Please join me in sharing her name and story.
#مهسا_امینی
This would be unacceptable no matter what, but the fact that she was arrested for improper wearing of the hijab makes it even more horrifying.
Please join me in sharing her name and story.
#مهسا_امینی
The hospital reported that Mahsa Amini had arrived already in a state of brain coma. Her family said they were never allowed to see the woman's autopsy report, and that they came under institutional pressure for the funeral to be held informally and privately, at night, to avoid unrest. Meanwhile, a week after her death, a doctor who is a member of the board of the Iranian Society of Neurosurgery reported that the woman had undergone brain surgery at the age of 8 and that her death could be related to this. The fact that this detail was revealed so many days later was widely regarded as suspicious and lacking in credibility.
The protests of the Iranian people
The Interior Minister opened an inquiry into the incident and Iran's president, Ebrahim Raisi, offered his condolences to the family. But the woman's death did not go unnoticed and in recent days has brought growing numbers of people onto the streets — initially in a more localised demand for the truth about what happened, and then in a nationwide denunciation of the religious radicalism of the Shia regime and the difficult economic conditions gripping the country.
Wow, I’m speechless.
An old lady, with head uncovered, walks through the city of Rasht in northern #Iran chanting “death to Khamenei.”
An old lady, with head uncovered, walks through the city of Rasht in northern #Iran chanting “death to Khamenei.”
The fiercest protests took place in the region of Iranian Kurdistan, Mahsa Amini's home. According to the Kurdistan human rights group, security forces killed dozens of protesters in the region, the injured number more than 700 and arrests run into the hundreds. Several businesses in the region kept their shutters down as a sign of protest at the death of Mahsa Amini. And as the hours passed the protest spread to dozens of other cities across the country, also engulfing the capital Tehran and some of its universities.
In recent days, the protests have been attended above all by women, many of whom have symbolically removed their veils, throwing them to the ground or setting them alight. Some have had their hair cut in public squares, a gesture that does not comply with the country's religious law. In videos circulating online, chants such as "death to the dictator" can be heard directed at Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei, the former and current Supreme Leader of Iran. Portraits and symbols of the latter have been destroyed in several cities.
Unprecedented scenes in Iran: woman sits on top of utility box and cuts her hair in main square in Kerman to protest death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the morality police. People clap their hands and chant “Death to the dictator.”
#مهسا_امینی
#مهسا_امینی
Security forces responded with tear gas, water cannons and baton charges; the official government toll currently stands at 26 deaths in total, including two officers, but figures from non-governmental organisations are much higher. This has not halted the momentum of the ongoing social unrest. The protesters' demand is for the abolition of the religious police, which has moreover taken on an even more radical role since President Raisi signed a more restrictive law on women's dress in August.
In recent weeks other women, such as the artist Sepideh Rashno, had suffered violence and torture at the hands of officers in exactly the same way as appears to have happened in the case of Mahsa Amini. The National Trust Party, Iran's reformist political party, also called for the religious police to be dissolved, and criticism of its conduct has come even from local religious authorities. Meanwhile, the government has implemented internet blackouts to make it harder for protesters to organise.
The difficult situation of women in Iran
"It is frustrating for women to have no basic human rights and not to be free to do as they wish; there is enormous discrimination against women in Iran that has a devastating impact on them in their careers, their education and even within the family," says Sadira, a 32-year-old Iranian woman who now lives in Europe for work. In Iran, women hold only 5 per cent of parliamentary seats, one woman in five spends her days on unpaid domestic and family work, women earn only 18 per cent of what a man earns, and 17 per cent of women aged between 15 and 49 report having experienced violence in the past year. It is no coincidence that the country ranks 144th in the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index.
The bravery of Iranian women x.com/1500tasvir/sta…