What You Need To Know About The Death Of Mahsa Amini And Iranian Protests
Focus: What Is Going On In Iran?
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On September 16, Mahsa Amini, 22, died in Iran under suspicious circumstances.
When she visited Teheran, Iran's capital city, from her hometown in the country's western Kurdistan region, Iran's morality police arrested her.
Police detained her for wearing tight trousers and her headscarf too loosely.
According to Iranian law, women require to wear the headscarf in a way that completely covers their hair when in public.
She reportedly collapsed at a police station and died three days later.
The police deny Amini was mistreated and say she died of a heart attack.
However, Amini's family says she had no history of heart trouble and that they were prevented from seeing her body before she was buried.
Beware: The following CCTV footage apparently shows Mahsa Amini suffering a stroke while in a morality police building. Several Iranian state-controlled media news outlets have published the footage. Inshallah cannot verify the authenticity of the footage independently.
The demonstrations erupted after her funeral in the Kurdish city of Saqez last weekend and quickly spread to other parts of the country, including Teheran.
Many people from all over the world reacted to Amini's death, which according to some news sources, became a symbol of violence against women in Iran.
In response to the Mahsa Amini protests, the government of Iran blocked access to apps like Instagram and WhatsApp and limited Internet access to reduce the protesters' ability to organize.
Protesters torched police stations and vehicles in several cities.
Iranian women have taken to the streets and the internet to burn their headscarves and cut their hair.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi told a news conference on the sidelines of the UN general assembly that the death of Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the morality police "must certainly be investigated".
According to Oslo-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), at least 31 people died during the protests.
However, several international news agencies reported that nine to 12 people were killed in the clashes between protestors and law enforcement authorities.
Amini's death triggered old but still present social issues in the country, including women's rights and police brutality.
The latter issue focuses specifically on Iran's morality police, a unit of Iran's Law Enforcement Forces (LEF), which arrests women for wearing "inappropriate" headscarves and enforces other restrictions on freedom of expression.
On Thursday, September 22, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran's morality police and senior security officials.
Loose headscarves have been the focus of violence against women in Iran over the years.
This is a CCTV footage from 2020
In fact, this is not the first time that Iranian police have assaulted women because of their clothing, and compulsory headscarf regulations have been targeted by numerous campaigns and protests.
Iranian women used social media networks to express their position against compulsory headscarves and denounced the aggressions made by authorities and most conservative people against women who wear headscarves "improperly" from the public morality's perspective.
While the death of Amini needs to be pieced together, the unrest that erupted in Iran is not only the result of her death.
The death of Amini has condensed yearslong multidimensional crises that the Iranian population has been experiencing in economic, social and political terms over the years.
The extreme religious approach of the state and part of the population exacerbated the poor condition of freedom of expression, which resulted in restrictions on access and control of information.
The first experience of a complete internet blackout in Iran following the nationwide protests in November 2019 shocked the people and the broader economy.
Furthermore, administrative and economic corruption, the militarization of the system, meaning the strict link of officials with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), sanctions, forced migration due to extreme weather, and poverty contributed to making the lives of Iranian unbearable for many, and the death of Amini likely became the casus belli to start new protests.
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About me
My name is Dario Sabaghi, a freelance journalist. I am interested in human rights and international news focusing on the MENA region.
Check out my work at dariosabaghi.com.
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Cover photo: Social media networks