Mahsa Amini was visiting the Iranian capital with her family when she was arrested on Tuesday.
Source: EFE
A 22-year-old Iranian woman, in a coma after being detained in Tehran by morality police, died on Friday, official television and her family announced, sparking outrage among activists calling for justice.
Mahsa Amini was visiting the Iranian capital with her family when she was arrested on Tuesday by the special police unit, which is responsible for enforcing the strict clothing rules imposed on Iranian women, such as the obligation to cover their hair.
Tehran police said in a statement Thursday that Amini had been detained along with other women to receive “explanations and instructions” about the dress code.
“Suddenly, she suffered a heart problem (…) she was immediately transferred to the hospital,” the statement said. “Unfortunately, she passed away and her body has been transferred to the medico-legal institute,” state television said on Friday.
The police confirmed the death in a statement highlighting that “no” there was “physical contact” between the agents and the woman. Mahsa Amini “as well as a certain number of people, due to wearing inappropriate clothing, was taken to one of the police headquarters”, but “suddenly fainted when she was with other people in a meeting room”, it said. the same source.
State television showed excerpts from a video showing a room, visibly at the police station, where numerous women appear. One of them, introduced as Mahsa Amini, gets up to argue with a “governess” and then collapses from her.
In another excerpt, the emergency services transport the woman’s body in an ambulance. Persian media, such as the IranWire website or the Shargh Daily newspaper, collect statements from her family stating that she was transported to the hospital in a coma hours after her arrest and that she was now dead.
“Unforgivable”
“The circumstances that have led to the suspicious death during the detention of the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, such as accusations of torture and other ill-treatment, must be the subject of a criminal investigation,” the NGO Amnesty International reacted.
“The so-called ‘morality police’ in Tehran arbitrarily arrested her three days before her death under the country’s abusive, discriminatory and degrading veil laws. All responsible agents and officials must be held accountable for her actions,” she added.
The United States described this death as “unforgivable”. We will continue to hold Iranian officials accountable for such human rights abuses,” tweeted President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
Iranian lawyer Said Dehghan claimed on Twitter that the event was a “murder” and that Amini had received a blow to the head that caused a skull fracture.
Hadi Ghaemi, director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, described it as a “tragedy that could have been prevented.” “The government of Iran is responsible.
She was detained under the state’s discriminatory veil law and died while in a state detention center,” he said.
Before the announcement of his death on television, the Iranian presidency said in a statement that President Ebrahim Raissi had commissioned the Interior Minister to investigate the case.
The country’s judicial authority also announced through its Mizan Online press agency the formation of a special team to investigate what happened. Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the law in force in Iran requires women, Iranian or foreign and whatever their religion, to go out with a headscarf.
However, in the last 20 years more and more women in Tehran and other big cities leave a significant part of their hair visible despite the veil.
