After 21 nights of protests across the country, Iranian authorities released a new version of the death, on September 16, of young Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested three days earlier. The protests, which spread to various countries in defense of Iranian women’s rights, inspired Afghan women, who also took to the streets at various points in recent hours.
The Forensic Medicine Organization of Iran said that “Mahsa Amini’s death was not caused by blows to the head or to vital organs and limbs of the body”. Amini’s death, the institute said in a statement, was linked to “surgery on a brain tumor at the age of eight”. Amini, 22, fell into a coma after her arrest in Tehran by the vice squad for violating the dress code imposed on women by the Iranian theocracy, especially the Islamic veil.
Amini’s parents have filed a complaint against the officials involved. O website The London-based Iran International channel quotes a former Revolutionary Guards commander as saying that tests conducted on Amini at Kasra Hospital found evidence of internal bleeding and damage to the spleen, the organ had been removed, but the lesions in the skull led to her death.
This case sparked the largest wave of protests in the past three years and the repressive response from security forces, killing dozens of protesters (at least 92, according to the Iranian human rights group) and arresting many more. Nothing has demobilized the Iranians, who have been demonstrating on the streets and in schools for three weeks in protests led by young women. The keywords are “Life, woman, freedom” (an expression used by the Kurds), but also “death to the dictator” or simply “azadi” (freedom).
The courage of the young Iranian women inspired Afghan neighbours, who demanded safety for the students.
The regime also denies killing other young women during the protests, while Amnesty International says Iran has forced the families of victims to state on film that they are absolving the state of responsibility for their deaths. Nasrin Shahkarami, mother of 16-year-old Nika, who died after her disappearance on September 20, insisted that her daughter be killed by the state after she joined a protest in Tehran. “I saw my daughter’s body myself. The back of her head showed that she had been hit very hard, that her skull had collapsed.”
Tehran says Nika fell from a terrace. And the reason for the death of another 16-year-old girl, Sarina Esmailzadeh, was suicide, but Amnesty has witnesses of how she was last seen alive when she was beaten by police.
The courage of the young Iranians has inspired their Afghan neighbors, whose fragile rights have diminished with the rise of the Taliban to power. In recent days there have been demonstrations in Kabul and in five other provinces calling for student safety. Last week, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a school, killing 43 girls preparing for an exam.
Source: DN
