DUBAI (Reuters) – Iranian police said on Monday that the death of a young woman in custody was an “unfortunate accident” they did not want to repeat, semi-official Fars news agency reported, denying allegations of mistreatment. have sparked protests.
Mahsa Amini, 22, fell into a coma and died after being arrested by the moral police in Tehran last week, sparking protests in parts of Iran, including Tehran and the Iranian Kurdistan region from which she hailed.
Videos posted on Twitter last Sunday showed protesters demonstrating in Sanandaj, the capital of the Kurdistan region.
A video clip broadcast by the Kurdish rights group Henjao showed security forces with riot gear marching down a city street and at least one of them firing what appeared to be a gun.
Reuters was unable to verify the authenticity of the videos.
Police said Amini fell ill while in custody with other women arrested by the moral police, which has imposed strict rules since the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution and requires women to cover their hair and wear loose clothing.
But on Sunday, Amini’s father told pro-reform news site Emtada’a that his daughter Lakme was suffering from health problems and bruised legs, and blamed the police for her death.
Reiterating the denial of any wrongdoing, the chief of police of Tehran, Hossein Rahimi, said that “cowardly accusations” were made against the Iranian police and that Amini was not physically harmed and that the police “did everything” to keep her. in life.
“This incident is unfortunate for us and we hope we never see such incidents,” Rahimi added in a statement released by the Fars news agency.
Police showed a video showing a woman identified as Amini walking into one room and sitting next to others. The police then sped up the clip to show Amini standing and talking to someone who appeared to be checking some of her clothes.
Then the woman put her hands on her head and collapsed.
Rahimi said paramedics arrived within a minute of his fall.
Amini’s father told Extension on Sunday that it took the police two hours to get her to the hospital and that if she got there earlier, she wouldn’t die.
Rahimi said he couldn’t talk about the cause of death because it was a medical issue, not a safety issue. He said the ethics police were “doing a good job”.
Amini’s death could lead to an escalation of tension between the security establishment and the Kurdish minority, whose population ranges between eight and ten million.
* “The clergy get out of our face”
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been able to quell unrest in the Kurdish regions of the country for decades and many Kurdish activists have been sentenced to long prison terms or to death.
An Iranian Twitter account focusing on protests in the country, with 60,000 followers, said shopkeepers staged a strike in Kurdish cities on Monday. He also posted a video showing what he said was a protest in a Tehran university against the Basij, a paramilitary force.
“Basij, get off our faces”, sang the protesters. One of them said: “I will kill whoever killed my sister … with guns, tanks or fireworks, the clergy keep our heads.”
Reuters could not independently verify the reports.
In recent years there have been waves of anti-veil protests against the religious establishment.
Among these were the protests of 2014, when human rights activist Masih Alinejad launched a Facebook campaign called “My Stolen Freedom”, in which she shared photos of Iranian women without a veil that were sent to her.
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