EFE
The United States demanded this Friday that Iran end violence against women after the young Masha Amini died of a heart attack at the police station where she was detained for not wearing the veil properly.
“Mahsa Amini’s death following injuries sustained in custody from an ‘improper’ headscarf is appalling. Our thoughts are with his family,” the State Department’s special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, said on social media.
In the same message, Malley said that “Iran must end the violence against women exercising their fundamental rights” and stressed that “those responsible for her death must be held accountable.”
The 22-year-old was arrested on Tuesday afternoon for not wearing the veil correctly and was taken to a police station to attend “an hour of re-education,” her family denounced.
Hours later she was admitted to Kasra Hospital in the capital in a coma after suffering a heart attack.
The news began to spread like wildfire on social networks, where many users expressed their outrage.
The president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisí, ordered this Friday an investigation to clarify what happened.
Raisí’s ultra-conservative government has increased pressure in recent months for women to comply with strict rules of dress and conduct.
Thus, the feared vans of the so-called Morale Police are more visible than before in places like Tajrish Square, in the north of Tehran, full of women who have been arrested for not wearing the veil properly.
The veil has been mandatory since the 1979 revolution led by Ayatollah Ruholá Khomeini, who declared that without it women were “naked”.