Iran: Women burn their headscarves at anti-hijab protest
The death in detention of a woman named Mahsa Amini, detained for violating hijab requirements served as the catalyst for Iran’s growing protests. These rallies have been led by women. As the unrest entered its sixth night and expanded to new cities, people celebrated as women in Sari burned their hijabs on a bonfire.
Security personnel in the northern Iranian cities of Urmia and Piranshahr, according to activists, shot and killed two male demonstrators. According to reports, a police aide was also slain in Shiraz in the south. Since protests against the hijab rules and the morality police erupted after Mahsa Amini’s death, at least six individuals are now thought to have died.
After three days in a coma, the 22-year-old Kurdish woman from the northwestern city of Saqqez passed away in the hospital on Friday. She was detained by morality police while in Tehran with her brother on the grounds that she had disobeyed the legislation requiring women to cover their arms and legs with loose clothing and their hair with a hijab, or headscarf. Soon after collapsing at a correctional facility, she entered the coma.
According to accounts, police reportedly used a baton to strike Ms. Amini in the head and hit her head against one of their cars, according to acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada al-Nashif.
“An independent competent authority that assures, in particular, that her family has access to justice and the truth must immediately, impartially, and effectively investigate Mahsa Amini’s terrible death and allegations of torture and ill-treatment”, Ms. Nashif said.
Iran: Women burn their headscarves at anti-hijab protest
She mentioned that while the morality police had increased its street sweeps in recent months to crack down on people believed to be wearing “loose hijab,” the UN had received “many, and authenticated, videos of brutal treatment of women”.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s assistant visited the family of Ms. Amini on Monday and assured them that “all institutions will take action to defend the rights that were violated,” according to state media.
These women in #Iran’s northern city of Sari are dancing and burning their headscarves… anti-regime protests have now spread to dozens of cities from north to south, east to west… all triggered by the death of #MahsaAmini while in the custody of Iran’s morality police. pic.twitter.com/BBDvgC5L1w
— Rana Rahimpour (@ranarahimpour) September 20, 2022
