Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurd, died in Iran on Friday 16 September 2022 after three days in a coma, following her violent arrest by the notorious "morality police" for allegedly infringing hijab rules amid Iranian crackdown on women’s dress.
Mahsa Amini was travelling with her family from Iran’s western province of Kurdistan to the capital, Tehran, to visit relatives when she was reportedly arrested for failing to meet the country’s strict rules on women’s dress, ie, not wearing the hijab and her trousers "correctly" and was brutally beaten in a police van, according to witnesses.
The news comes weeks after Iran’s hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi, called for stricter enforcement of the country’s mandatory dress code, which has required all women to wear the hijab head-covering.
According to Hrana, an Iranian human rights organisation, Amini’s family were told during her arrest that she would be released after a “re-education session”. But Amini was in a coma her family said, adding that they were told by hospital staff that she was brain dead.
The news of her death has unleashed fury in the streets against the unaccountable and often brutal treatment handed out to women by this branch of the police.
Several more people have died since the government launched a crackdown on demonstrations.
As a sign of protest Iranian women are burning their headscarves and cutting off their hair in anger and protest.
[Video posted on Twitter by @radiojibi]
