The protests are striking for their feminist nature – with several clips of Iranian citizens publicly burning their hijabs going viral.
On 14 September, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian, got arrested by morality police in Tehran for failing to wear the compulsory hijab in public. She died in police custody three days later, with the Iranian authorities claiming she had suffered “a heart attack”. Eyewitnesses, though, report watching the police beat her – which many believe resulted in her falling into a deadly coma.
Her family has also confirmed that Mahsa had never suffered from a heart condition previously, with her father, Amjad Amini, alleging that he had been denied the right to see footage of the arrest as well as being prohibited from seeing Mahsa’s body, which had been wrapped in a sheet when presented to him – although he claimed to have noticed suspicious bruising on her feet.
A previous statement from the director general of forensic medicine in Tehran province, however, claimed that there were “no signs of injuries to the head and face, no bruises around the eyes, or fractures at the base of Mahsa Amini’s skull”.