Hundreds of protesters gathered on Keshawar’s central avenue alone on Monday night, according to Iranian news agency Fars. Police sometimes used water cannons and batons against the crowd. Protesters reportedly set fire to garbage cans and threw stones.
In a coma after being arrested
However, most of the protests were peaceful. According to eyewitnesses, the city’s police and security forces were on the streets. According to eyewitnesses, people gathered at Volkspark Mellat and some shouted slogans critical of the regime. Several women took off their headscarves in solidarity with Amini. The young woman fell into a coma after being arrested by religious police last Tuesday and died in a hospital on Friday.
In other cities and in Amini’s home province of Kurdistan, many people took to the streets. According to media reports, there were also clashes between security forces and protesters. According to reports that have not been independently confirmed, shots were also fired in the city of Diwandareh. Initially, there was no official confirmation. In several places, protesters chanted: “We are not afraid, we are all together” – a slogan that became popular during the demonstrations after the disputed 2009 presidential election.
Great sympathy and consternation
In Iran and internationally, the Amini case has caused great sympathy and consternation. On the internet, many Iranians mourned the young woman who was arrested by moral and religious police on Tuesday during a family visit in Tehran because of her “un-Islamic” clothing and taken to a police station. According to police, she passed out and then fell into a coma because of heart failure. Her death was confirmed on Friday.
However, another version was also circulating online. After the arrest, his head slammed against the window of the police car, causing a brain hemorrhage. The police vehemently denied this account. Following her death, the clinic where the 22-year-old was treated wrote in a now-deleted Instagram post that Amini was already brain dead when she was admitted on Tuesday.
Police again rejected any blame for the young woman’s death on Monday. The allegations are “baseless”, the capital’s police chief, Hussein Rahimi, was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency. Police are always trying to ensure that such cases do not occur, Rahimi said. “It’s our job by law to remind women of the dress code,” the police chief said. “What they wear at home is their business, not in public.” However, they did not harm the woman, Rahimi assured her.
The police and government of President Ebrahim Raisi have been left unexplained since Amini’s death and national criticism. The police tried to prove his innocence with several unverifiable video recordings. Conservative newspaper Keyhan, which is considered the voice of hardliners, and other government politicians supported the version. They accuse critics of inciting unrest against the Islamic Republic and of wanting to spread lies. At the same time, Raisi ordered that the case be thoroughly analyzed.
Various expressions of solidarity
Prominent Iranian women joined the internet protest out of solidarity, for example by cutting their hair or posting pictures without a headscarf. Among them were well-known actresses Anahita Hemmati and Shabnam Farshadjhu.
Iran has had strict dress codes since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. In the metropolises and wealthier districts in particular, many women now view the rules as somewhat relaxed – much to the annoyance of ultra-conservative politicians. Raisis’s government and radicals in parliament have been trying for months to enforce Islamic laws more rigorously. Deputy police sometimes enforce the dress code violently.