(Paris) A young Iranian woman, in a coma after being arrested in Tehran by morality police, died on Friday, state television and her family announced, activists urging that those responsible for her death be brought to justice. “suspicious”.
Posted yesterday at 6:08 p.m.
Mahsa Amini, 22, was visiting Tehran with her family when she was arrested on Tuesday by the special police unit responsible for enforcing strict dress rules for women, including the obligation to cover the hair.
Tehran police said on Thursday that Mahsa Amini had been arrested along with other women to receive “instructions” on dress rules. “She suddenly suffered from a heart problem, […] she was immediately taken to hospital,” police added.
“Unfortunately, she died and her body was transferred to the forensic institute,” state television said on Friday.
In a statement, Tehran police confirmed the death, saying “there was no physical contact” between police officers and the young woman.
On Tuesday, Mahsa Amini “along with a number of people, due to wearing inappropriate clothing, were taken to one of the police headquarters”, but “she suddenly fainted when she was with other people in a meeting room,” according to the same source.
State television broadcast for its part extracts from a video showing a room, visibly at the police station, where you can see many women. One of them, introduced as Mahsa Amini, gets up to argue with an “instructor” about her dress code, then she collapses. In another excerpt, the emergency service transports the woman’s body to an ambulance.
Persian-language media, including the IranWire website and the newspaper Shargh Dailyreported statements from her family saying she was taken to hospital in a coma hours after her arrest and is now dead.
“Murder”
“The circumstances leading to the suspicious death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, including allegations of torture and other ill-treatment, must be criminally investigated.” NGO Amnesty International. “The so-called ‘morals police’ in Tehran arbitrarily arrested her three days before her death under the country’s abusive, discriminatory and degrading headscarf laws. All responsible agents and officials must answer for their actions”.
The United States has deemed this death “unforgivable”. “We will continue to hold Iranian leaders accountable for such human rights abuses,” Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor to US President Joe Biden, wrote on Twitter.
Iranian lawyer Said Dehghan called the young woman’s death a “murder” on Twitter, saying she had been hit in the head which caused a fractured skull.
Hadi Ghaemi, director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, based in New York (United States), described the death as a “tragedy that could have been avoided”. “The government in Iran is responsible. She was arrested under the state’s discriminatory headscarf law and died while in a state detention center,” he added.
Before the announcement of the death, the Iranian presidency had indicated in a press release that President Ebrahim Raisi had instructed the Minister of the Interior to investigate this affair.
The country’s judicial authority had also announced via its news agency Mizan Online the formation of a special group to open an investigation.
The incident comes as controversy swells over the conduct of the morality police, who patrol the streets to verify the application of the headscarf law and other Islamic rules in public places.
Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the law has required all women, regardless of nationality or religion, to wear a veil that covers the head and neck while concealing the hair.
However, over the past two decades, more and more women in Tehran and other major cities are letting strands of hair, or even more, stick out of their veils.