Iran Protests over the death of Mahsa Amini
Getty Photos via Al Jazeera
Widespread protests have occurred throughout Iran after Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian woman was killed by the morality police on Sept. 16 for wearing her hijab improperly. She was 22 years old at the time of her death.
The morality police, officially Iran’s “Guidance Patrol,” imposes religious laws upon the Iranian population, including the dress code, behaviour, and the mix of gender interactions in public. Punishments for broken religious laws may come in various forms, scaling from a vocal warning to torture. CTV News reports that since the election of extremist President Ebrahim Raisi last year, morality police have heightened their aggression in Iran.
According to the BBC, as a former judiciary chief, Mr. Raisi was one of the four judges who sat on the “Death Committee” that sentenced prisoners to death after religious rulings by the Supreme Leader. The US has imposed sanctions on Raisi for alleged human rights violations, as reported by the BBC.
During a family trip to Tehran, the police arrested and detained Amini on Sept. 13 in accordance with the Iranian Penal Code.
Article 638, Book 5 of the code states: “women who appear in public without a proper hijab should be imprisoned from ten days to two months or pay a fine”.
“There are reports that Ms. Amini was beaten on the head with a baton and her head was banged against the vehicle, by so-called “morality police’’,” stated Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
“She fell into a coma shortly after collapsing at Vozara Detention Centre. Ms. Amini, who also goes by the Kurdish name Jhina, died three days later.”
Iranian authorities say that Amini died of natural causes and that she suffered prior health conditions which led her to a heart attack. However, family members have claimed that she had no health issues prior to her death and that the government is trying to cover up the reality of what occurred.
Her cousin, Erfan Mortezaei, said in an interview with Sky News that there have been efforts by Iran to silence Amini’s family from speaking out.
The protests began after Amini’s burial by security officials in her hometown, Saqqez, around 460 kilometres west of Tehran. Protesting men and women, notably female youth, banded together in solidarity chanting “Death to the Dictator ‘’ in Farsi, referring to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the streets.
In the seventh week of protests, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) has declared that there have been over 14,000 protest related arrests and 283 protest related deaths, including those of 44 minors, spread out across 129 Iranian towns and cities as of Oct. 30.