2023-09-16 11:00:23
This Saturday marks the first anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd who was detained and violently beaten by Iran’s morality police for violating the country’s women’s dress code.
Published on: 16/09/2023 – 11:00
2 min
Young Mahsa Amini died a year ago in a Tehran hospital three days after her arrest, accused of improperly wearing the Islamic veil. Her death sparked a wave of civil protests, on a national and international scale.
This Saturday, September 16, morning, Mahsa Amini’s father, Amjad Amini, was arrested exactly one year after his daughter.
According to Iran Human Rights (IHR), a non-governmental organization opposing the Iranian regime based in Oslo, Norway, Amjad Amini “was arrested this morning by repressive forces” Iranian women, when leaving home, in Saqez, Kurdistan, “and returned hours later”.
In recent weeks, Amujad Amini was taken at least four times for questioning by various security forces, who pressured and disrespected him.
The protests in Iran lasted for months, began with calls for freedom and the defense of women’s rights, with Iranian women openly challenging the regime, and evolved into calls for the end of the Islamic Republic.
The protest on the streets lost strength in the face of a repression that caused 551 deaths, including 68 minors and 49 women (according to the Iranian NGO Human Rights), 22,000 detainees (according to Amnesty International) and the execution of seven protesters.
The militants claim that the repression intensified as the date of the first anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death approached and that the persecution mainly targeted the families of people killed in the demonstrations. The NGO Human Rights Watch indicated that, in August, family members of at least 36 people killed following the protests were interrogated, detained or sentenced to prison.
The two journalists who followed the case most closely, Niloufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, have been in prison for almost a year, and reporter Nazila Maroufian, who interviewed Mahsa Amini’s father, Amjad Amini, has been detained several times. Meanwhile, Amjad Amini told Iranian newspapers based abroad that he wanted to organize the anniversary of his daughter’s death in the city of Saquez, in northern Iran, and some media and NGOs said that he was summoned by those responsible for the security services and that they were sent additional security forces for that city, particularly near his home, and other Kurdish locations.
On the eve of the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death, the United States and the European Union imposed new sanctions on individuals and entities linked to the Tehran regime. Something that the Iranian regime has already condemned.
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