Women all around Iran have posted videos of themselves cutting their hair and burning their hijabs on social media in response to the murder of a 22-year-old.
State media in Tehran claimed on Friday that Mahsa Amini passed away while in police custody after slipping into a coma.
Amini was detained earlier this week by the so-called “morality police” after officers apparently found fault with her headscarf, or hijab.
The headscarf has been compulsory for women in Iran since after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and members of the morality police enforce the strict dress code.
While police have claimed Amini suffered a heart attack, pro-reform news websites quoted an uncle of Amini as saying she had no history of heart disease.
Let’s take a look at who she was, what happened and how women are protesting:
…
She was who? What took place?
Amini was an ethnic Kurd from the western city of Saqez, according to the BBC.
When she was arrest on Tuesday, she and her family were visiting the capital city of Tehran.
Amini was detained by the morality police at a Tehran metro station, according to the BBC. They charged her with disobeying the legislation mandating that women cover their arms and legs with loose clothing and their hair with a hijab.
Police asserted that Amini allegedly experienced “sudden heart failure” while waiting to be “taught” at the institution with other women.
She had been in a coma for three days when state television pronounced her dead on Friday. A crowd soon assembled in front of Tehran’s Kasra hospital shortly after that.
According to Al Jazeera, authorities have made video available that shows Amini standing up to speak with a female “expert” at the centre. Amini then collapses while grabbing her head in the video.
According to the website Fars, which cited an unknown source, Amini had epilepsy, diabetes, and a brain tumour when she was five. Her family, however, has rejected these allegations, stating that she was completely healthy and free of any underlying issues.
According to the BBC, the interior minister stated on Saturday that Amini “obviously had past physical problems.”
However, her father stated that she was “healthy and had no health problems” to pro-reform media outlets on Sunday.
He continued by saying that his daughter had bruises on her legs and that the CCTV film showed a “edited version” of the incident.
…
The interior minister was direct by President Ebrahim Raisi to launch an investigation into Amini’s case.
Raisi told the family in a phone call that he would investigate the matter because “your kid is like my own daughter and I feel like this catastrophe happened to one of my own relatives,” according to the official state news agency IRNA on Sunday.
The director of the Tehran medical examiner’s office stated on state television on Saturday that it could take up to three weeks to finish the cause of death examination.
How do women demonstrate?
On social media, Iranian women are removing their hijabs and cutting their hair, with many of them adopting the hashtag #Mahsa Amini, which is popular both in Iran and abroad.
Read more: Chandigarh Hostel Video Leak: Three Arrests, All-Team Women’s Takes Control
