New Delhi: The death of a 22-year-old woman reportedly after being detained by the ‘morality police’ in Iran for not wearing the hijab properly has triggered protests in the West Asian country..
Mahsa Amini, The Guardian reported, died in hospital on 16 September, three days after she was arrested and reportedly beaten by morality police in Tehran. According to Reuters, Amini fell into a coma following her detention by morality police enforcing Iran’s strict hijab rules.
Amini’s body was taken to her native province of Kurdistan for burial which took place Saturday morning. Security institutions forced Amini’s family to hold the funeral without any ceremony to prevent tensions, The Guardian reported.
Amini’s family was reportedly told that she would be released from the police station after a “re-education session”. She was visiting Tehran with her family on 13 September when she was arrested. The police deny the allegation of beating Amini in a detention van, maintaining that she suffered a heart attack, an account of events that is not accepted by Amini’s family, according to The Guardian.
A day before, Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad shared the photos of Amini on Twitter claiming that it was taken an hour before she was beaten and arrested by the morality police for the crime of wearing “bad hijab”, and added that the woman was in coma.
This photo is taken an hour before she got beaten and arrested by morality police in Iran for the crime of wearing “bad hijab” and now she is in a coma.
Why this tragedy is not in the front page of international media?
Are you worried about Islamophobia? Don’t! Her life matters. pic.twitter.com/geY5gFmLiF
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) September 16, 2022
The suspicion around her death has sparked protests by Iranians on social media and on the streets, with several women taking off their hijab as a mark of protest. Amnesty Iran also demanded a criminal investigation in the matter. “Women of Iran-Saghez removed their headscarves in protest against the murder of Mahsa Amini, 22-year-old woman by hijab police and chanting: Death to dictator![sic],” Alinejad tweeted, sharing a video of the protest.
Alinejad also alleged that Twitter attempted to censor her by blocking her account which was later restored after she was forced to take down two photos of victims killed by security forces. “You are censoring me and others who expose brutality by dictators while letting those who commit these crimes to post undisturbed,” Alinejad added.
In the past few months, Iranian rights activists have been appealing women to publicly remove their veils to protest the crackdown by the hardline rulers. Amid the reports of authorities increasingly cracking down on women for “violation” of wearing the hijab, which is mandatory in public, President Raisi signed a decree in August to enforce Iran’s hijab and chastity law in a new list of restrictions on how women can dress.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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