The inflammatory death of Mahsa Amini

Authored by Charlotte Lucas

On Sept. 13, twenty two year old Mahsa Amini traveled from the city Saqqez to Tehran to visit her brother on a personal holiday. When she arrived that evening, the morality police, Iran’s Islamic agency with the goal of ensuring religious observance, detained her at a metro station for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly. The police took her to a detention center for a briefing class on the proper dressing rules for women. Her family was told she would be released later that night. Mahsa died three days later in a hospital after being taken into custody. 

Before the Iranian Revolution of 1979, women’s rights were expanding. In 1963, a referendum that secured suffrage for women wasadopted. The age of marriage was increased from thirteen to eighteen, and women gained the ability to file for divorce. By the seventies,women served in Iran’s parliament and had an extensive role in the workforce. In fact, while the hijab was widely worn, clothing such asminiskirts and short sleeved shirts were becoming popularized. 

After the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, the first supreme leader of Iran, made the hijab mandatory, with further intentions to revokecivil rights gained. On International Women’s Day in 1979, tens of thousands took to the streets of Tehran to protest. They were attackedby the police and counter protesters, who threw stones, bricks, and glass. 

Since then, the Iranian government has enforced strict expectations of mandatory hijab wearing. Today, women who violate the law canbe imprisoned from two days to ten months. However, due to the Iranian government’s history of distance from the global community,their human rights data has not been regularly disclosed and the exact number of women arrested for these crimes cannot be determined. 

In late 2017, a woman removed her hijab atop of an electricity box, amid protests against poverty and democratic violations. This actsparked the Girls of Revolution Street protests. Women followed her example, removing their hijabs in public places. 29 women wereconfirmed to be arrested, some of whom were beaten, sentenced to prison, and threatened with shots fired into crowds. 

Today’s protests, provoked by the death of Mahsa Amini, are a continuation of protests that have been occurring since the implementationof conservative laws directed towards women. 

At the detention center, Mahsa is described to have suddenly fallen into critical condition, losing vision and consciousness. According toreports, an ambulance arrived 30 minutes after her health deteriorated, and she was taken to a hospital 1 hour later. There, she slipped into a coma and ultimately was declared brain dead. Her family was told by her doctors that Mahsa suffered a stroke, while the Iranian government claims previous health conditions caused her to have a heart attack. Her family disputes this, contending that before she was taken, she was in perfect health. 

Eyewitnesses claim that Mahsa was beaten in the back of the police truck as well as verbally brutalized. Her clinical symptoms, bleeding atthe ears and bruises underneath her eyes, corroborate the violence. Furthermore, her skull was fractured, indicating that she sufferedblows to the head. The cause of death is uncertain, and currently disputed. 

Throughout Iran, civil unrest erupted as the public formed their own consensus: an innocent woman was murdered for wearing clothesdeemed unbecoming by the government. 

For the past two months, young protesters have been demonstrating throughout cities in Iran, chanting calls for democracy and genderequality, with the goal of removing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ending the Islamic Republic, as well the mandatory hijab policy. Supporting them, young men have joined the protests as well. Mahsa’s family has also filed a complaint against the police.

On Oct. 15, a fire started at Tehran’s Evin prison. The prison is known to hold many intellectual and political dissenters. At least eight people died, while many more were injured. Currently, the cause of the fire is undetermined. However, one high profile prisoner was sent home before it broke out, causing some to suspect a link between officials and the fire. 

The Iranian government has made attempts to quell the civil unrest. While protestors light hijabs and other materials on fire, police officers have shot tear gas into crowds. Furthermore, the government has periodically blocked the internet and specific social media apps to prevent communication between people inside of the country and those outside of it. 

Protests, entering their third month, continue to have the same level of fury towards the suspected injustice of Mahsa’s untimely death. This is caused by the younger generations’ expectation of virtue and morality, which is propelling forward the work that activists andwomen have done throughout history. 

In this time, over 15,000 protestors have been arrested, all of whom face the potential of the death penalty for their actions. There have also been 500 confirmed deaths, caused by the crackdown during protests. Recently, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Supreme Leader acknowledged the protests, supporting the Basijis, the police.

“You saw in the most recent events, our innocent and oppressed Basijis became the targets of oppression so that they wouldn’t allow the nation to become the targets of rioters and thugs and those on the payroll, whether wittingly or unwittingly. They gave of themselves to free others,” Khamenei said.

However, protestors refuse to relinquish their objectives and hopes for the future of Iran. They remain driven by the memory of Mahsa Amini, a young woman taken into custody for allegedly wearing her hijab incorrectly, and the undeadly but still oppressive regime they continue to live under. It is still uncertain if there will be any quantifiable change, but the people of Iran are adamant to achieve their goals.