The 22-year-old girl died last Friday in a hospital in Tehran, the capital, to which she had been admitted three days earlier in a coma after collapsing at a police station to which she had been taken for wearing the veil incorrectly, mandatory for women. women in the country from the age of seven.
“The number of people who have died in the recent unrest in the country has risen to 35,” state media said, raising the previous official toll of 17 dead, including five members of the security forces.
In the northeastern province of Guilan, the police chief today announced “the arrest of 739 rioters, including 60 women” in this region alone since the protests began, according to the Iranian news agency Tasnim.
On Friday, protests multiplied across the country and videos posted on the internet showed clashes in Tehran and other major cities such as Tabriz, the AFP news agency reported. Some footage showed security forces in the cities of Piranshahr, Mahabad and Urmia firing what appeared to be live ammunition at unarmed protesters.
According to Amnesty International, evidence gathered from 20 cities in Iran points to “a horrific pattern of Iranian security forces deliberately and illegally firing live ammunition at protesters.”
In a video shared by the Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights, a uniformed member of the security forces fires an AK-47 assault rifle at protesters on Tehran’s Ferdowsi Boulevard.
There was also a wave of arrests of activists and journalists, including Niloufar Hamedi of the reformist Shargh newspaper, who reported on Amini’s death. In addition, according to the organization Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 11 journalists have been detained since last Monday.
In videos of the protests broadcast on social networks, women were seen who dared to remove their veils and burn them in clear defiance of the authorities, while others symbolically cut their hair before the cheering crowds.
But to these demonstrations of repudiation were also added yesterday mobilizations in favor of the Islamic veil, with thousands of people in the streets of Tehran who paid tribute to the security forces that are trying to suffocate what the official media call “conspirators”.
Demonstrations in support of the security forces were also held in cities such as Ahvaz, Isfahan, Qom and Tabriz.
Amini died after being detained by the Iranian morality police, which is in charge of enforcing the country’s strict dress code for women. According to activists, she received a blow to the head while she was detained, while the Police affirm that she died of “a heart problem”, a version rejected by the young woman’s family.
The Government opened an investigation into the case and, according to what the Minister of the Interior, Ahmad Vahidi, affirmed yesterday, the evidence indicates that Amini had not been beaten.
Vahidi also warned about the risk of “false interpretations” of this incident, reported the Europa Press news agency. The president of Iran, the conservative Ebrahim Raisi, spoke along the same lines, calling for “decisive action against those who oppose the security and tranquility of the country”.
The president returned to Tehran last night from New York, where he participated in the UN General Assembly, in which he had downplayed the protests, assuring that they are something “normal” and that there is freedom in the country, although he made it clear that “vandalism” will not be allowed.
Source: Ambito
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