ALBAWABA - As Iranians prepare to commemorate the death of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian lady who died while in the care of the country's morality police, Al Bawaba remembers the woman who pushed women all over Iran to take the streets to protest the Iranian regime's oppressive policies against women.
Mahsa Amini died after being arrested by the country's morality police for "not wearing the hijab properly" on Sept. 16, 2022, in Tehran. Amini spent 3 days in the hospital, where doctors pronounced her dead after countless attempts to save her life.
Amini came to the hospital with visible signs of torture which caused her severe damage that left her body almost paralyzed. Thousands of Iranians, mostly women, took to the streets to protest what they consider police oppression and brutality against women, compulsory hijab, and their rights in Iran.
Later in May, Mahsa Amini's brother took it to Instagram, showing a picture of his late sister's gravestone being damaged. Askan Amini posted a photo of the damaged gravestone and wrote: "The glass of your tombstone also bothers them. Break it a thousand times, we will fix it again, let's see who gets tired".
The killing of Amini at the hands of the morality police has triggered violent protests in Tehran and many cities in the Islamic Republic as activists and women's rights advocates burnt hijabs and cut their hair in protest of compulsory hijab rule in Iran.
Women all across the country took it upon themselves to defend their rights and to fight for justice for Amini. Two Iranian journalists, who have won WAN-IFRA’s 2023 Golden Pen of Freedom over their role in exposing the death of Mahsa Amini, were jailed in Iranian prisons.
The two women separately stood trial earlier in June before a revolutionary court presided over by notorious judge Abolghasem Salavati, according to Iranian pro-reform outlet SharghDaily.
According to the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) report, Iranian authorities have imprisoned at least 75 journalists since widespread anti-government protests swept across the country in the days following Amini's death. Seventeen people, including Ms. Hamedi and Ms. Mohammadi, remain imprisoned.
