Iranian authorities on Saturday prevented Mahsa Amini’s family from holding a ceremony to mark the first anniversary of her death and banned her father from leaving his home after briefly detaining him, human rights groups said.
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Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, died on September 16, 2022, after her arrest for allegedly violating the strict dress code for women, one of the ideological pillars of the Islamic Republic since the overthrow of the secular Shah in 1979. Mahsa Amini’s family claims she died from a blow to the head, but authorities dispute this version of events.
Her death was followed by angry protests in Iran, led largely by women who openly opposed the regime and its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Mahsa Amini’s father, Amjad Amini, was arrested on Saturday as he left the family home in the western city of Saghez, then released after being ordered not to organize a memorial service in front of the deceased’s grave, the NGO Kurdistan Human said Rights Network with (KHRN), 1500tasvir-Monitor and Iran Human Rights (IHR), based in Norway.
He is now no longer allowed to leave his home as members of the security forces are stationed outside, the NGOs added in separate statements.
The protests, organized immediately after Mahsa Amini’s death, lost momentum after several months when 551 protesters, including 68 children and 49 women, were killed by security forces, according to IHR, and another 22,000 were arrested, according to Amnesty International. In addition, seven men were executed for crimes related to these demonstrations.
Activists say the crackdown has intensified as the first anniversary approaches, with relatives of those killed in the protests also being targeted to ensure they do not speak out.
Family members of at least 36 people killed or executed in the crackdown were interrogated, arrested, prosecuted or sentenced to prison in August, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.
“The Iranian authorities are trying to suppress dissent to prevent public commemoration of the death in custody of Mahsa Jina Amini, who has become a symbol of the government’s systematic repression of women, injustice and impunity,” Tara said Sepehri Far, Iran researcher at HRW.
The two journalists who most closely followed the case, Niloufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, have been imprisoned for almost a year, while another, Nazila Maroufian, who interviewed Mahsa’s father Amjad Amini, has been arrested many times.
According to the NGO Hengaw, which monitors the situation of the Kurds, the government this weekend sent additional security forces to Saghez, the hometown of Mahsa Amini, and other places that could become sensitive areas.
Separately, a bill called “Support for the Culture of Hijab and Chastity” is currently before the Iranian parliament, which would impose much harsher penalties for violations of existing laws.
Amnesty International accused Iran’s leaders of committing a “litany of crimes under international law to stamp out any challenge to their iron grip on power” and regretted that no official had been the subject of an investigation into the death of Mahsa Amini or the repression.
On the eve of that anniversary, the United States imposed new sanctions on Tehran over its suppression of demonstrations in conflict with Iran and its Western allies, including the United Kingdom and the European Union.
In response to these sanctions, Iran on Saturday condemned “interventionist statements.”
Iranian President Ebrahim Raïssi met on Saturday with families of security force members killed during the 2022 protest movement.