Mahsa Amini beaten to death by Iran's Morality Police - no h

[no1novice]

Mahsa Amini: Women take headscarves off in protest at funeral

By Ali Hamedani
BBC World Service

Published

2 hours ago

Mahsa Amini
Image source, Mahsa Amini family

Protests have broken out at the funeral of a woman who died after being arrested by Iran's morality police.

Mahsa Amini, 22, died on Friday, days after eyewitnesses said she was beaten in a police van in Tehran - allegations denied by police.

Some women at the ceremony reportedly removed their headscarves in protest at the compulsory wearing of hijabs.

Mourners chanted "death to the dictator", with videos showing police later firing on a crowd.

The funeral took place in Ms Amini's hometown, Saqez, in the western province of Kurdistan.

According to videos published on social media, locals gathered very early in the morning to prevent Iranian security forces rushing through the burial in secret to avoid protests.

Reports suggested that some angry protesters marched toward the local governor's office to protest about the death. According to videos received and verified by the BBC Persian Service, the security forces opened fire on protesters.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter

There were also reports of injuries and arrests. In videos published on Twitter, security forces can be seen guarding the governor's office and arresting protesters trying to get close to the building.

A picture of Ms Amini's gravestone was published on social media. It reads: "You didn't die. Your name will be a code [rallying call]."

Ms Amini was arrested on Tuesday by the morality police for allegedly not complying with the strict dress code on head coverings.

According to eyewitnesses, she was beaten while inside a police van and slipped into a coma later.

Iranian police denied the allegations, saying she had "suffered a sudden heart failure".

Ebrahim Raisi, Iran's hardline president, has asked the ministry of the interior to launch an investigation into the death.

Kasra Hospital in Northern Tehran said in a statement that Ms Amini was admitted on 13 September showing "no vital signs".

The statement was later removed from the hospital's social media after hardline social media accounts accused hospital staff of being "anti-regime agents".

Iranian TV also aired CCTV footage of Ms Amini under arrest. Human rights activists accused state TV of censoring the footage to create a false story.

According to Netblocks, a watchdog organization that monitors cybersecurity and internet governance, the internet connection has been disrupted in various locations in Iran since news of Ms Amini's death came out, including in the capital, Tehran, and Saqez.

Many users said they could not upload videos on Instagram or send content over WhatsApp.

Iranian state-controlled Sharq newspaper reported that Tehran's very low internet speed disrupted the stock market on Saturday.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter

Since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, women have been legally required to wear modest "Islamic" clothing. In practice, this means women must wear a chador, a full-body cloak, or a headscarf and a manteau (overcoat) that covers their arms.

In recent years, Iran has seen several campaigns against the compulsory hijab, but a crackdown by Iran's morality police on women accused of not complying with the dress code has caused opponents of the policy to call for action.

Recently, the head of Iran's judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejeie, suggested that foreign powers are behind the campaign, instructing intelligence agencies to find the "hands behind the naked veil".

Earlier in the summer, President Raisi also promised to crack down on the "promotion of organized corruption in the Islamic society", directly referring to the campaign.

In recent months, Iranian state TV has showed televised confessions of women arrested for not following the strict dress code.

Many Iranians blame the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, for the crackdown. A speech by him is being shared on social media in which he praises the role of the morality police and the way it operates.

[MsDark]

Every woman should remove them. Are they going to shoot all their women?

[brookie]

Sept 18, 2022 19:47:11 GMT MsDark said:

Every woman should remove them. Are they going to shoot all their women?

Would it surprise you if they did?

[MsDark]

It would surprise me more if the women actually did this.

Because I would not be surprised at all if they were shot.

And if there was an internet/cell phone blackout in the country so no one (or way less) would find out about it. Because they know it's fucked up and wrong and even detrimental to their future even if they managed to keep it a secret. But it would not stop them from doing it.

[panic]

It caught me so off guard when I saw her on tv, I stopped breathing to see her there. Morality police? The fuck is WRONG with them?

[greysfang]

I've seen a lot of tiktoks that Iranian women are protesting by cutting their hair and burning their hijabs.

[no1novice]

Yes a lot of the protestors that don't wear hijabs don't live in Iran or have had to move

[no1novice]

Three people killed in Iran protests over death of Mahsa Amini

Kurdistan governor blames deaths on ‘plot by the enemy’ on fourth day of protests over 22-year-old’s death in custody
Protests across Iran after 22-year-old woman dies in police detention – video
Supported by
guardian.org
About this content
Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor
Tue 20 Sep 2022 18.05 BST
First published on Tue 20 Sep 2022 12.41 BST

Iranian government officials have denounced a fourth day of protests after the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman in police custody, claiming the demonstrators have fallen victim to a conspiracy by its enemies.

Mahsa Amini died on Friday after she was arrested by the morality police for not wearing the hijab and her trousers correctly, a tragic episode that has unleashed fury in the streets against the unaccountable and sometimes brutal treatment handed out to women by this branch of the police.


Three more people have died since the government launched a crackdown on demonstrations.

Local petitions have been started calling for the disbandment of the morality police, saying their actions enforcing the hijab are counterproductive and discriminatory.

Mohsen Mansouri, the governor of Tehran, tweeted: “The main elements of the initial core of the gatherings in Tehran tonight were fully organised, trained and planned to create disturbances in Tehran.

“Burning the flag, pouring diesel on the roads, throwing stones, attacking the police, setting fire to the engine and garbage cans, destroying public property, etc … are not the work of ordinary people.”


Police arriving to disperse demonstrators.
Police arriving to disperse demonstrators. Photograph: Wana News Agency/Reuters

Some Iranian lawmakers claimed outsiders, including news organisations backed by Iran’s enemies in Saudi Arabia, were exploiting her death. They nevertheless continued to promise an inquiry.
Advertisement

The scale of the violence and the number of arrests on Monday night are hard to assess independently. However, videos of beatings and protests were posted on social media, including footage with the sound of gunfire.

The Kurdish human rights group Hengaw, which is based in Norway, said it had confirmed three deaths at rallies in Kurdistan province – one in each of the towns of Divandareh, Saqqez and Dehglan.

It added that 221 people had been wounded and another 250 arrested in the Kurdistan region, where there had also been a general strike on Monday.

A 10-year-old girl – blood-spattered images of whom have gone viral on social media – was wounded in the town of Bukan but was alive, it added.

On Tuesday, the governor of Iran’s Kurdistan region, Ismail Zarei Koosha, confirmed three people had been killed but blamed the deaths on “a plot by the enemy”, according to the state-affiliated Fars news agency

“One of the citizens of the city of Divandarreh was killed with a type of military weapon that none of the ranks of the armed forces use,” he was quoted as saying.


Many protests were peaceful, including the placing of a banner depicting Amini on a bridge across one of Tehran’s main highways.

The controversy is sensitive for the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, who is currently in New York to address the UN general assembly for the first time. Human rights groups in New York are protesting against his presence and launching legal actions against him.

Although Raisi has ordered an investigation and expressed his personal sympathy, his critics say his earlier support for a more interventionist morality police has exposed a cultural division inside Iran.

In a sign that authorities were concerned the anger could spiral out of their control, an aide to the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, paid a two-hour visit to Amini’s family home on Monday.

The semi-official Tasnim news agency said Abdolreza Pourzahabi told Amini’s family “all institutions will take action to defend the rights that were violated” and that he was sure Khamenei was “also affected and pained” by her death.


Demonstrators gather around a burning barricade.
Demonstrators gather around a burning barricade. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

The controversy has overshadowed talks due on Tuesday between Ali Bagheri, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, and the EU chief negotiator, Enrique Mora.
Advertisement

The regime is determined to argue that she died in police custody not due to any beating but as a result of a pre-existing brain condition, and an operation conducted when she was five. CT scans of her brain released by the hospital have become the subject of medical dispute, with government supporters citing neurologists claiming they show the psychological stress was caused by the previous brain operation, and its critics claiming they show signs of a physical beating and trauma. The official government news site said it could take three weeks for the inquiry to reach a conclusion.

Regardless of the outcome, sections of Iranian society have clearly lost patience with the morality police, arguing that many women have suffered long-term post-traumatic stress disorder after the police’s efforts to “re-educate” them.

In Geneva, the UN Human Rights Office said Iran’s morality police had been expanding their patrols in recent months, targeting women for not properly wearing the Islamic headscarf, known as hijab. It said verified videos showed women being slapped in the face, struck with batons and thrown into police vans for wearing the hijab too loosely.

Nada Al-Nashif, the acting UN high commissioner for human rights, said: “Mahsa Amini’s tragic death and allegations of torture and ill-treatment must be promptly, impartially and effectively investigated by an independent competent authority.”

www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/20/iran-death-mahsa-amini-protests-morality-police