Protests erupted at the funeral of the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in western Iran, after she passed away after being in detention by the morality police on September 16th. In order to protest against the death, Iranian women removed their hijab amidst chants of the slogan “death to the dictator”, while the security forces used tear gas to disperse the crowd.
Several Iranians are protesting on the streets and on social media. While protesting, the protestors even took down a banner of Qasem Soleimani, the dead commander of the IRGC Quds force.
Constant protests are being organized in the country because Iran’s radical government has made it compulsory for women to wear the hijab and those who do not wear it are arrested by the police and are tortured by them. This was the very reason behind Amini’s death as well. She was arrested by the police on September 13th because of not wearing the hijab. During that time, she was in the country’s capital, Tehran, with her family, and had travelled to the city from the city of Saqez, situated in the Kurdistan province.
After the torture inflicted on her following her arrest, she went into a coma and lost her life three days later. The police have issued a statement claiming that she suffered from a heart attack when in custody, and she was not tortured or beaten by them. Nevertheless, her family members are certain of these claims being a lie, as Amini was completely fit before her arrest.
Human rights law expert Shadi Sadar has labeled Amini’s arrest to be wrong, and President Ibrahim Raisi has ordered a probe into the matter.
