Amani Al-Khatahtbeh
Fri, September 30, 2022
Photo credit: OZAN KOSE - Getty Images
Recently, unprecedented images have emerged from the streets of Iran: defiant-eyed women ceremoniously cutting their locks in public; headscarves burning on the streets amid plumes of smoke; oceans of nameless demonstrators shouting together in a unified chant—all protesting against forced hijab laws, now behind the veil of government-imposed Internet shutdowns.
Almost 20 years ago, during the height of the War on Terror, a Muslim schoolgirl in France took a similar action and publicly shaved her head in front of an audience of protesters, international media, and press cameras, making global headlines in a pre-social media era.
Except, she was protesting for her right to wear it.
This is no contradiction. Muslim women across the East and West have been fighting for the same thing for decades: the right to choose.
Mahsa Amini, whose Kurdish first name is Jhina, sparked a national outcry when the 22-year-old died in police custody in Tehran on Sept. 16. Amini was arrested and beaten by Iran’s “morality police”—the government agency used to enforce mandatory hijab rules—for “bad hijab,” or what they deemed to be an inappropriate form of dress. While the “morality police” asserts itself as a spiritual authority, the reality is that it’s a government invention with no theological existence in Islam that manipulates religion to assert control over people. In Iran, the morality police use hijab as a tool to essentially diminish Iranian women from the public space, intimidating women across the country to stay home.
Photo credit: YASIN AKGUL - Getty Images
While commonly equated to the headscarf, hijab is the universal concept of modesty applied to both men and women’s Islamic lifestyle. While the headscarf is a physical practice of hijab, it is intended to apply to all facets of one’s life—from your attitude to your actions to even your way of thinking—with the purpose of promoting compassion and sanctifying personal autonomy. For example, the first requirement of physical hijab is the Hadith of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, to “lower your gaze”—placing the onus on one’s personal actions first and foremost, rather than blaming or interfering with another person’s hijab. At its spiritual foundation, the core of hijab is personal choice: the only “good hijab” is one with intention; the only “bad hijab” is one that’s forced.
That’s why at the same time as Iranian women are fighting with their lives for their right to take their headscarves off, Indian women are fighting for their right to keep them on. This March, in the face of increasing Hindu nationalism and widespread anti-Muslim violence, an Indian court upheld a policy allowing schools in the state of Karnataka to ban the hijab, provoking attacks targeting Indian Muslim women and girls. In 2021, Muslim women launched the viral social media hashtag #HandsOffMyHijab after French officials voted to ban young Muslim women and girls from wearing the hijab in public.
Photo credit: Anadolu Agency - Getty Images
The truth is that laws forcing Muslim women to wear headscarves or take them off represent two sides of the same coin: controlling Muslim women’s right to choose. Hijab laws have nothing to do with religion or secularism. At best, they are a form of state-sanctioned sexual harassment; at worst, they represent the systemic subjugation of Muslim women, no matter what society they exist in.
Mahsa Amini and countless others have lost their lives over Iran’s hijab laws; countless more are risking their lives by hitting the streets and expressing themselves on social media. But their fight for freedom is not an exception. It’s time for us to have nuanced conversations around hijab and the way it has been used as a tool and a litmus test for how we view Muslim women. The worst thing that can happen is for the world to respond to Iranian women’s bravery by using it to oppress Muslim women elsewhere in the world under the guise of liberation.
As the United States grapples with its own war over women’s bodies in the form of abortion rights, it’s clear that the desire to control women transcends religion, political ideology and even cultural spheres. Now, Iranian women are beating the drum, calling on women all over the world to claim a revolutionary truth: Our bodies are on our terms.
Associated Press
Fri, September 30, 2022
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Leaked government documents show that Iran ordered its security forces to “severely confront” antigovernment demonstrations that broke out earlier this month, Amnesty International said Friday.
The London-based rights group said security forces have killed at least 52 people since protests over the death of a woman detained by the morality police began nearly two weeks ago, including by firing live ammunition into crowds and beating protesters with batons.
It says security forces have also beaten and groped female protesters who remove their headscarves to protest the treatment of women by Iran's theocracy.
The state-run IRNA news agency meanwhile reported renewed violence in the city of Zahedan, near the borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan. It said gunmen opened fire and hurled firebombs at a police station, setting off a battle with police.
It said police and passersby were wounded, without elaborating, and did not say whether the violence was related to the antigovernment protests. The region has seen previous attacks on security forces claimed by militant and separatist groups.
Videos circulating on social media showed gunfire and a police vehicle on fire. Others showed crowds chanting against the government. Video from elsewhere in Iran showed protests in Ahvaz, in the southwest, and Ardabil in the northwest.
The death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who was detained for allegedly wearing the mandatory Islamic headscarf too loosely, has triggered an outpouring of anger at Iran's ruling clerics.
Her family says they were told she was beaten to death in custody. Police say the 22-year-old Amini died of a heart attack and deny mistreating her, and Iranian officials say her death is under investigation.
Iran's leaders accuse hostile foreign entities of seizing on her death to foment unrest against the Islamic Republic and portray the protesters as rioters, saying a number of security forces have been killed.
Amnesty said it obtained a leaked copy of an official document saying that the General Headquarters of the Armed Forces ordered commanders on Sept. 21 to “severely confront troublemakers and anti-revolutionaries.” The rights group says the use of lethal force escalated later that evening, with at least 34 people killed that night alone.
It said another leaked document shows that, two days later, the commander in Mazandran province ordered security forces to “confront mercilessly, going as far as causing deaths, any unrest by rioters and anti-Revolutionaries," referring to those opposed to Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, which brought the clerics to power.
“The Iranian authorities knowingly decided to harm or kill people who took to the streets to express their anger at decades of repression and injustice," said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.
“Amid an epidemic of systemic impunity that has long prevailed in Iran, dozens of men, women and children have been unlawfully killed in the latest round of bloodshed.”
Amnesty did not say how it acquired the documents. There was no immediate comment from Iranian authorities.
Iranian state TV has reported that at least 41 protesters and police have been killed since the demonstrations began Sept. 17. An Associated Press count of official statements by authorities tallied at least 14 dead, with more than 1,500 demonstrators arrested.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday that at least 28 reporters have been arrested.
Iranian authorities have severely restricted internet access and blocked access to Instagram and WhatsApp, popular social media applications that are also used by the protesters to organize and share information.
That makes it difficult to gauge the extent of the protests, particularly outside the capital, Tehran. Iranian media have only sporadically covered the demonstrations.
Iranians have long used virtual private networks and proxies to get around the government's internet restrictions. Shervin Hajipour, an amateur singer in Iran, recently posted a song on Instagram based on tweets about Amini that received more than 40 million views in less than 48 hours before it was taken down.
Deaths mount, celebs detained in Iran's "ruthless" protest crackdown
Iran stepped up pressure on celebrities and journalists Thursday over the wave of women-led protests sparked by outrage over the death of Mahsa Amini, after she was arrested by the Islamic republic's morality police. The Iranian security forces' crackdown on protesters and those who support them has left 83 people dead, according to the Norway-based Iran Human Rights organization. Filmmakers, athletes, musicians and actors have backed the demonstrations, and many saw it as a signal when the national soccer team remained in their black tracksuits when the anthems were played before a match in Vienna against Senegal. "We will take action against the celebrities who have fanned the flames of the riots," Tehran provincial governor Mohsen Mansouri said, according to the ISNA news agency.
Mahsa Amini's family tells CBS News she was "tortured"
Iran's judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei similarly charged that "those who became famous thanks to support from the system have joined the enemy when times are difficult."
The warnings came after almost two weeks of protests across Iran and a deadly crackdown that, human rights group Amnesty International says, has been marked by "ruthless violence by security forces." Public anger flared after Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, died on September 16, three days after her arrest for allegedly breaching Iran's strict rules for women on wearing hijab headscarves and modest clothing. "Woman, Life, Freedom!" protesters have chanted ever since, in Iran's biggest demonstrations in almost three years, in which women have defiantly burned their headscarves and cut their hair. Parallel protests have been held for days in major cities around the world, often in front of Iranian embassies and consulates.
President Ebrahim Raisi warned that, despite "grief and sorrow" over Amini's death, public security "is the red line of the Islamic republic of Iran and no one is allowed to break the law and cause chaos." Iran on Thursday arrested the reporter Elahe Mohammadi, who had covered Amini's funeral, her lawyer said, the latest of a growing number of journalists to be detained. Police have also arrested journalist Niloufar Hamedi of the reformist Shargh daily, who went to the hospital where Amini lay in a coma and helped expose the case to the world. The Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday that three additional journalists — Farshid Ghorbanpour, Aria Jaffari and Mobin Balouch — had been arrested, bringing the total behind bars to 28. Intelligence officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps arrested 50 members of "an organized network" behind the "riots" in the holy Shiite city of Qom, the Guards said, according to Fars news agency.
Some Iranian celebrities were among those reportedly being swept up in the arrests, in addition to a musician and singer named Shervin Hajipour who was little known before the unrest broke out. He posted a video of himself singing a song composed entirely of messages from protest tweets, which garnered tens of millions of views on Instagram before he was reportedly arrested and forced to take it off the platform.
Other Instagram users reposted Hajipour's song in support.
A former professional soccer player was also detained over his support for the protests, state media reported. "Former Persepolis FC player Hossein Maahini was arrested by the order of the judicial authorities for supporting and encouraging riots on his social media pages," state news agency IRNA said.
On Thursday, Tehran provincial governor Mohsen Mansouri warned celebrities against coming out in support of the protests.
"We will take action against the celebrities who have fanned the flames of the riots," ISNA news agency quoted him as saying. London-based Amnesty International criticized Iran's "widespread patterns of unlawful use of force and ruthless violence by security forces." It said this included the use of live ammunition and metal pellets, heavy beatings and sexual violence against women, all "under the cover of deliberate ongoing internet and mobile disruptions." "Dozens of people, including children, have been killed so far and hundreds injured," said the group's secretary general Agnes Callamard.
Iran's Fars news agency has said that "around 60" people had been killed, while the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights has reported a death toll of at least 76 people. Iran has blamed outside forces for the protests and Wednesday launched cross-border missile and drone strikes that killed 13 people in Iraq's Kurdistan region, accusing armed groups based there of fueling the unrest. The U.S. on Thursday said one of its citizens had been killed in the Iranian strikes, separately announcing the fresh enforcement of sanctions on Tehran's oil sales. Iran's economy has been decimated for years by punishing sanctions imposed by the West over its contested nuclear program. On Thursday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said she was "doing everything" she could to push for European Union sanctions against those "beating women to death and shooting demonstrators in the name of religion." The Iranian government has sought to play down the crisis. Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said he told Western diplomats at recent U.N. meetings that the protests were "not a big deal" for the stability of the clerical state. "There is not going to be regime change in Iran," he told National Public Radio in New York on Wednesday. "Don't play to the emotions of the Iranian people."
Senior Iran cleric calls for crackdown on protesters
Fri, September 30, 2022
By Parisa Hafezi
DUBAI (Reuters) -A senior Iranian cleric called for tough action on Friday against protesters enraged by the death of a young woman in police custody who are demanding the downfall of the country's leaders in the biggest crisis since 2019.
"Our security is our distinctive privilege. The Iranian people demand the harshest punishment for these barbaric rioters," said Mohammad Javad Haj Ali Akbari, a leader of prayers that are held on Fridays in Tehran before a large gathering.
"The people want the death of Mahsa Amini to be cleared up...so that enemies cannot take advantage of this incident."
Amini, a 22-year-old from the Iranian Kurdish town of Saqez, was arrested this month in Tehran for "unsuitable attire" by the morality police who enforce the Islamic Republic's strict dress code for women.
Her death has caused the first big show of opposition on Iran's streets since authorities crushed protests against a rise in gasoline prices in 2019. The demonstrations have quickly evolved into a popular revolt against the clerical establishment.
Heavy shooting could be heard on videos posted on social media, as protesters chanted "Death to Khamenei", referring to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Amnesty International said on Friday the government crackdown on demonstrations has so far led to the death of at least 52 people, with hundreds injured.
The human rights group said in a statement it had obtained a copy of an official document that records that the General Headquarters of Armed Forces issued an order to commanders in all provinces to "severely confront" protesters described as "troublemakers and anti-revolutionaries".
POLICE STATIONS ATTACKED
Despite the growing death toll and crackdown by authorities, videos posted on Twitter showed demonstrators calling for the fall of the clerical establishment.
Activist Twitter account 1500tasvir, which has more than 150,000 followers, posted videos which it said showed protests in cities including Ahvaz in the southwest, Mashhad in the northeast and Zahedan in the southeast, where people were said to be attacking a police station.
Reuters could not verify the footage.
State television said "unidentified armed individuals" opened fire on a police station in Zahedan in the southeast, prompting security forces to return fire.
The semi-official Fars news agency said at least two people were killed and dozens injured, citing unspecified reports.
Protests have spread to restive southeast Iran, home to the Baluch ethnic minority, with demonstrators torching government offices in at least one city. Protesters are angered by Amini's death and the case of a local teenage girl whose family, backed by a local cleric, alleges was raped by a senior policeman, according to reports on social media.
Western human rights groups say that Iran, dominated by its Persian Shi'ite majority, discriminates against ethnic and religious minorities. Tehran denies this.
Iran has come under international condemnation over Amini's death and its handling of the nationwide demonstrations.
Rights group Open Stadiums have called on FIFA to throw Iran out of the World Cup finals in Qatar in November because of the country's treatment of women.
Meanwhile, Iran rejected criticism of its missile and drone attack on Wednesday on the Iraqi Kurdistan region where Iranian armed dissident Kurdish groups are based. The United States called it "an unjustified violation of Iraqi sovereignty and territorial integrity".
"Iran has repeatedly asked the Iraqi central government officials and regional authorities to prevent the activities of separatist and terrorist groups that are active against the Islamic Republic," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani told state media.
(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Frances Kerry, Angus MacSwan and Alex Richardson)
Iran protests over Amini's death continue,
83 said dead
STORY: It’s been nearly two weeks since Mahsa Amini died in police custody in Iran and protests are far from over.
Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based group, said at least 83 people have been killed.
Her death has sparked global anger leading to protests across Iran and all over the world.
Despite the increasing death toll and a fierce crackdown by authorities, videos posted on Twitter show demonstrators calling for the fall of the clerical establishment in Tehran, Qom and other major Iranian cities.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has said the unrest was the latest move by hostile Western powers against Iran since its Islamic revolution in 1979.
"The Islamic Republic’s red line is the security of the people’s life and property. We cannot in any way allow the trespassing of the life and property of people and for people to want to disrupt the security of society.”
Germany's foreign minister said on Thursday she wanted the European Union to impose sanctions on Iran in the wake of Amini's death.
"I am doing everything I can within the EU framework, so that we can start to impose sanctions, especially now, while we keep on negotiating on the JCPOA. To impose sanctions on those in Iran, who ruthlessly beat women to death in the name of religion, (who) gun down protestors."
In Norway, many people tried to get into the Iranian embassy in Oslo during an angry demonstration where two people were injured - Norwegian police said.
In London, formerly detained British-Iranian aid worker, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe filmed herself on Wednesday cutting her hair in support of protests in Iran over Amini’s death.
‘Terrifying and inspiring’: Iranian Americans on the protests rocking Iran
Yusra Farzan
Fri, September 30, 2022
“This is a really beautiful moment,” says Hoda Katebi, a writer and community organizer based in Chicago. “It has been terrifying and inspiring for Iranians, both in Iran and outside of it.”
For the last 14 days, Iranians have been protesting on the streets across their country, defying judicial warnings after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa (Jina) Amini.
Amini, who was a member of Iran’s Kurdish minority, was arrested in Tehran by the morality police because of how she chose to wear the hijab. She collapsed and died in police custody. In solidarity, some women have taken off and burnt their headscarves. Others have pelt police officers with stones while chanting “zan, zendegi, azadi” or “women, life, freedom”.
In solidarity, the chant, which has Kurdish origins, is being sounded all over the world by the Iranian diaspora. Across the US, Iranian Americans have responded by staging protests in cities such as Washington DC, New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
“We now all have the same demand inside and outside [of Iran],” says Esha Momeni.
Momeni, a lecturer in the gender studies department at the University of California, Los Angeles, has attended solidarity protests in Los Angeles, home to one of the largest Iranian American communities in the US and where more than 100,000 members of the diaspora live.
For Hamoun Dolatshahi, a Kurdish-Iranian filmmaker based in Los Angeles, the hijab is a powerful symbol of resistance. Since the government controls bodily autonomy, “Iranian women are hitting the government in the most vital spot,” he said.
“Ten years ago, when people believed that the election was stolen, which it was, people were asking ‘where is my vote?’” Dolatshahi says, referring to the Green Movement in 2009. “The chants have changed drastically, nobody is talking about reform. Now people are asking for a change of government.”
Aside from women’s leadership, UCLA professor Momeini says “what distinguishes this movement from previous ones is its ability to unite people around a common goal”.
In 2008, Momeini was arrested and jailed in Iran after marching with three million people during the Green Movement uprisings. She had traveled to Iran to film a documentary on women’s rights. “At the time, people were not demanding structural change. It was about citizenship rights. It was about corruption,” she says. “It had a reformist approach.”
However, today women have been removing their headscarves, she says, as a way of demanding fundamental structural change.
Some of these demands are bodily autonomy in public spaces, as well as economic justice, including rights for workers, teachers and students. She emphasizes “that there should be no gender delay on progress”.
The Iranian diaspora in other parts of the world has been playing its part too. In Freetown, Sierra Leone, Priscillia Kounkou Hoveyda has been tweeting videos of the protests, sharing artist-designed graphics and championing the uprising on her site Collective for Black Iranians and her Twitter feed.
“What’s being pushed into the forefront is the narrative of hair in the wind. To me, it’s a reductive narrative,” Hoveyda says, referring to a popular social media post featuring hair on a flagpole flying in the wind to signify liberation from the compulsory hijab.
Instead, Hoveyda prefers to support “lower-class” minorities who have been driving the demonstrations and calling for freedom from discrimination. “It’s about freedom from state-sponsored violence,” she says.
Kurds in Iran, who make up 10% of the population, cannot speak their language, Hoveyda points out. They do not teach it in schools and are afraid to use their Kurdish name. Amini too has been widely referred to as Mahsa instead of her Kurdish name, Jina. The demonstrators are calling out this discrimination, she says, in addition to the end of compulsory hijab.
As protests have continued, the Iranian government has cracked down with internet blockades, arrests and tear gas fired at the protestors. The US and European Union have retaliated with the threat of further sanctions.
However, Hoveyda, Dolatshahi and Katebi vehemently oppose sanctions.
“I think what we need to focus on is what’s coming out of Iran. And the people of Iran, we do not hear anybody calling for sanctions,” says Dolatshahi.
Hoveyda points at the chants on the ground: “I don’t want how it used to be, and I don’t want what I have now, no shah, no rahbar,” as an indication of what the people of Iran want, she says. Sanctions, she adds, are politically motivated.
Activist Forouzan Farahani in New York City shaves her head in protest over the death of Mahsa Amini. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Sanctions, Katebi says, embolden the hardliners in Iran, strengthening the government, which can consolidate wealth. The impact, all three agree, will economically hurt those on the streets calling for government change.
Dolatshahi was also disheartened by Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi’s opportunity to address world leaders at the United Nations just last week, even as protests rocked the country.
Raisi, who he refers to as “president of the dictatorship”, should not have been allowed to visit the US freely, “as people were being killed by his orders”, he said.
Instead, Dolatshahi urged foreign leaders to “listen to the people of Iran, to speak out, they need to put pressure on the Iranian government and Iranian officials. They need to be very careful that they don’t affect the people who are fighting the system”.
He also called for the removal of sanctions that economically impact the people of Iran, calling them “just as violent and unnecessary as the dictatorship of the extremists”.
“The fundamental purpose of sanctions”, Momeni says, “is to cause a severe economic crisis in a country in order to turn the public against the regime, and so trigger a policy or even regime change”.
In the case of Iran, she continues, it has strengthened the Islamic republic and destroyed the middle class. “Even if we assume that sanctions play a role in the change of the regime, they had devastating long-term effects. To name a few, it isolated Iranians from participating in [the] global economy, has created generational trauma [and] increased gender violence,” she says. And it’s these generational losses that are forcing young people to the streets demanding change.
Momeni urges the international community to recognize that and end sanctions to support the movement. She says she has received emails from individuals and organizations wanting to donate money to support the family of prisoners in Iran, but because of the sanctions, “there’s no way to send money to anyone.”
President Biden moved to relax sanctions on internet communications in Iran to “support the free flow of information” and Katebi thinks this was the right move.
She urges the US government to continue in this vein and “lift sanctions that are placing a chokehold on the Iranian people, and are directed towards specific things like medicine, aid, as well as other very basic things that have been harming Iranian people on the ground, including women, workers and ethnic minorities”.
WGA West’s Middle Eastern Writers Committee Stands “In Solidarity” With Iranian Protesters
David Robb
Thu, September 29, 2022
As protests continue to sweep across Iran following the death of a young woman who’d been detained by Iranian “morality police,” the WGA West and its Middle Eastern Writers Committee have released a statement in solidarity with the women-led activists there.
The protests were sparked after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, was violently detained by Iranian authorities this month for wearing “improper” attire. She died three days later while still in custody.
The WGAW committee said:
“Her death sparked outrage, especially among women, and Iranians took to the streets all across the country in solidarity,” Since then, countless other lives have been lost in this fight for freedom while most of the world has remained silent.
“As writers, we are granted the fundamental right to speak openly, and express ourselves without fear of governmental retaliation. With that right, comes a responsibility to uphold the same values for people all over the world.
“The WGAW’s Middle Eastern Writers Committee and the WGAW stand strongly behind the fearless and courageous women-led activists of Iran who are taking to the streets and putting their lives at risk to fight for a fundamental freedom we often take for granted, chanting ‘woman, life, freedom.’
“Currently, the government of Iran has restricted communication and access to social media platforms by shutting down the internet across the country, using censorship to shutter any form of dissent.
“Women’s rights continue to be threatened all around the world, and Iranian women are currently at the forefront of this battle. We ask that all WGA writers use their platforms, their writers rooms, and their storytelling capabilities to amplify voices that are being silenced in order to continue to fight for change.”
On Wednesday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said, “We all are saddened by this tragic incident,” but he added that “chaos is unacceptable.”
Family frantically searched for Iranian woman after arrest
A woman shows a placard with a photo of of Iranian Mahsa Amini as she attends a protest against her death, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022. Amini's death in custody has sparked a stunning wave of protests across Iran, with women removing headscarves. A cousin, Irfan Mortezai, says the family is proud that Amini has become a symbol of resistance, but they are lying low out of worries over Iranian security agents. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)
SAMYA KULLAB and SALAR SALIM
Thu, September 29, 2022
SULIMANIYAH, Iraq (AP) — When Mahsa Amini was detained in the Iranian capital for wearing her veil too loosely, her family sprang into action, calling relatives, friends, contacts — anyone who could help.
One of her cousins, Irfan Mortezai, living in neighboring Iraq, got the message from her distraught brother.
“She’s been arrested by the morality police,” the brother wrote to him from the family’s hometown of Saqqez in mainly Kurdish western Iran.
Mortezai hadn’t seen his cousin, who he refers to as Zhina, her Kurdish name, in years. Not since he fled his home country in 2020 to join Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in Iraq’s northern Sulaymaniyah province. But he knew how important it was to try and reach her — he had been arrested in Iran and was in prison there two years before leaving the country.
He joined other family members in calling relatives and friends in Tehran in efforts to try and find a way to see her in custody during those fateful hours.
“We tried by every means to reach her but the Iranian authorities did not let us,” he told The Associated Press on Thursday. “I couldn’t reach her.”
A few days later, on Sept. 16, word came that the 22-year-old Amini was dead.
What happened next stunned Mortezai and the rest of the family: Her death sparked large-scale protests across Iran that have captured the world attention.
Women protesters in Iran and across the world would make a show of taking off their headscarves and cutting their hair in solidarity with Amini.
Mortezai said the family is lying low amid the protests, wary of Iranian security agents, but that they are proud Amini has become “a symbol for standing up against injustice and oppression.”
The family has said a witness told them that Amini was beaten while in custody and has blamed authorities for her death. Police said she had a heart attack and fell on the floor of the station and died after being in a coma for two days.
Iranian state TV has suggested that at least 41 protesters and police have been killed in the ensuing unrest. An AP count of official statements by authorities tallied at least 13 dead, with more than 1,400 demonstrators arrested.
Mortezai said he was shocked when the message came to him that his cousin was dead. “I was full of anger, I didn’t know what to do, I just wanted revenge.”
The 34-year-old Mortezai is a member of Komala, one of several Kurdish opposition parties based in Sulimaniyah.
While his branch of the family is linked to opposition groups, Amini’s side is not, he said.
“She was not political, her father is a normal government employee, and her mother is a housewife, they stayed away from (political) parties,” he said.
The last time he saw Mahsa was at a family gathering at his aunt’s home in the city of Saqqez, before his departure from Iran. They spoke on the phone not long after that. More recently, he had heard from her family that she had been accepted to a university to study law.
“She was beautiful, always smiling,” he said. “Full of life.”
Iranian women are risking their lives for freedom. Why have Western feminists been so quiet? | Opinion
Masih Alinejad
Thu, September 29, 2022
A new uprising is taking place in Iran, and this time women are in the lead. It’s incredibly inspiring to see — for the first time I can remember — unveiled women marching at the front. They have overcome fear and are challenging one of the main pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran: compulsory hijab.
These women are marching shoulder to shoulder with men, chanting against the whole regime. They are facing guns and bullets and demanding an end to a system of gender apartheid.
Mahsa Amini was only 22 years old. She wasn’t uncovered; only a few strands of her hair showed. And yet she was arrested by the so-called “morality police” and packed off to jail. Three days later, she was dead. Many Iranians are convinced she was killed — a belief reinforced by countless individual experiences with the brutality of the security services.
The news of her death has triggered outrage throughout Iran. Tens of thousands of demonstrators are defying security forces to ask why an innocent young woman lost her life to religious radicals who merely wanted to show off their militant male power. The compulsory hijab is not just a small piece of cloth for Iranian women; it is the most visible symbol of how we are oppressed by a tyrannical theocracy. Now, by drawing attention to that injustice, Mahsa’s death has the potential to serve as a new turning point for Iranian women.
They deserve the support of their Western counterparts. Yet, so far, we see little evidence that women in Europe or North America are willing to take to the streets to show their solidarity for a women’s revolution in Iran.
Recent experience has been discouraging. Over the past decade, we’ve seen female politicians from democratic countries — including Ségolène Royal from France, Catherine Ashton from the United Kingdom and Federica Mogherini from Italy — don hijab on their visits to Iran. They are quick to assert their feminist credentials in their own societies — but when it comes to Iran, they go out of their way to show deference to the men who have elevated misogyny to a state principle. A regime that abuses and harasses millions of women each year does not deserve our respect. To do so makes a mockery of all our talk of universal human rights.
When the Women’s March took place in Washington, D.C., in 2017, I was happy to join. Along with the rest I chanted: “My body, my choice.” Some women might well choose to veil their faces and bodies in accordance with their religious or cultural beliefs — but that should be their own choice, not a rule imposed by men’s whips and clubs. Yet Western women seem only too happy to succumb to the standards dictated by the male tyrants in countries such as Afghanistan and Iran.
I don’t consider such feminists to be true advocates of women’s rights. The true feminists and women’s rights activists are those in Afghanistan and Iran who are stepping forward, at great cost, to resist the Taliban and Islamic republic. They are risking their lives by facing guns and bullets. They will go on fighting against the regimes, and we who have the privilege to live in free countries should actively amplify their voices. This is the moment for women in the West to stand with Iran’s mothers, daughters and sisters.
I will not remain silent. I will continue to speak out until compulsory hijab laws are abolished. Like the women now taking to the streets in my home country, I, too, have been targeted by the regime. I speak up despite that regime’s attacks on my family and its attempts to have me abducted or killed. I feel deep solitary with the thousands of women protesting in Iran. I will continue to do what I can to support their struggle, to help them achieve their rights.
Iranian women are fighting to recover our dignity and exercise our personal freedoms so that, one day, all Iranians can choose our government in free and fair elections. We shouldn’t be afraid of the religious fanatics and the jihadists. They are the ones who are frightened. It is why they seek to keep women down. But too many in the outside world are shaking hands with our murderers.
Western feminists must speak up. Join us. Make a video. Cut your hair. Burn a headscarf. Share it on social media and boost Iranian voices. Use your freedom to say her name. Her name was Mahsa Amini.
The Washington Post
Alinejad
Rosa Sanchez
Thu, September 29, 2022
Photo credit: YASIN AKGUL - Getty Images
Iranian women are protesting the death of one of their own, Mahsa Amini.
Amini, a 22-year-old, died on Friday, three days after being arrested by Iran's morality police. These police officers have all the powers of a law enforcement agency and are in charge of enforcing the country's strict dress code mandates for women, including wearing a hijab in public to cover one's hair and neck.
Amini was taken to the Vozara Street Detention Center Tuesday to be educated about the hijab, Tehran Police said, per CNN. But while in custody, Amini collapsed and was taken to the hospital, where she later died. Local police claimed she suffered a heart attack, while her family said she had no prior heart conditions and witnesses accused officers of beating her, per the BBC.
During a news conference on Monday, Greater Tehran Police Commander Hossein Rahimi denied claims that Iranian police harmed Amini in any way, and said they had "done everything" to keep her alive. He called her death "unfortunate."
Since Amini’s death, protests have broken out across Iran, with women standing up against the morality police by chopping off their hair, removing and even burning their hijabs in public, and dressing up as men to fight the officers.
Videos on social media show women running through the streets of Tehran, as well as more conservative cities, like Mashhad and Kermanshah, putting on flash protests and shouting, "Women, life, freedom."
Some are even setting fires and destroying posters with images of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Meanwhile, internet monitoring website Netblocks has documented internet outages in the country since Friday—a tactic the local government has previously used to minimize the spread of protests.
Amini's death comes amid growing controversy and pushback over the dress code for women—which is enforced since they turn nine years old and applies to people of all nationalities and religions living in the country, not just Iranian Muslims.
This began long before the establishment of the current Islamic Republic. In 1936, Reza Shah, a ruler who supported Western laws and ideals, attempted to modernize the country by banning the wearing of veils and headscarves, but many women resisted. Then, in 1979, the Islamic regime that followed enforced the wearing of the hjiab, and the rule was written into law in 1983, after which the morality police force was founded.
Karl Vick
Thu, September 29, 2022
People gather during a protest for Mahsa Amini, who died after being arrested by morality police allegedly not complying with strict dress code in Tehran
People gather during a protest for Mahsa Amini, who died after being arrested by morality police allegedly not complying with strict dress code in Tehran, Iran, on Sept. 22, 2022. Credit - Iranwire/Middle East Images/Redux
The protests in Iran are leaderless. They broke out spontaneously across the country after images appeared on social media of a 22-year-old woman named Mahsa Amini, unconscious in the hospital bed where she would be declared dead on Sept. 16, three days after being arrested on a Tehran street by a “morality patrol.” The officers are notorious for their rough treatment of women deemed to be violating the theocracy’s rules on female religious dress, or hijab.
Nasrin Sotoudeh has been defending these women in Iran’s courtrooms for years. She is the leading human rights lawyer still inside Iran, and the most prominent in a constellation of women’s rights advocates that includes Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, a colleague and client. Sotoudeh spoke to TIME on Wednesday via Zoom from her Tehran home, where she is on medical furlough from the prison where she was sentenced in March 2019 to 38 years, and 148 lashes, for her legal work.
TIME: I should start by asking your current situation.
Nasrin Sotoudeh: I have been out of prison for 14 months on a medical furlough. But they can take me back to prison at any point in time that they wish.
And I understand there have been some “preventative arrests” as the state calls them?
Yes, this has been the case whenever we have significant protests. There have been arrests of lawyers, but especially of journalists, because of the speed with which they share the news, and also because they come to the defense of detainees.
Can you describe to me what’s happening now and and if it feels different than previous protests?
This is this is one of the most extensive protests that you’ve had. It’s spread to cities and towns all over. As you know, the spark for it was the killing of Mahsa Amini, which really embodies by itself the 43 years of pain that women have endured in this country. This is for us a physical, bodily experience. It’s as real an aspect of life here as as could be.
Sentence after sentence, ruling after ruling are imposed on our bodies in terms of our dress. And not only that, but rape and other transgressions. They hit you and hurt you and bruise you, and wrap you up in the veil once again that conceals the harm that’s inflicted on you.
[She stifles a sob.] I apologize. This fulfills me with emotion and at times it’s hard for me to speak.
You know the story of the Daughters of Revolution Street and how they were arrested?
Tell me.
The women on Revolution Street were violently arrested by the morality police and security forces. I was the lawyer for some of these women. Often they were actually pulled off or thrown off the pedestal they stood on. When one of them was brought from prison to court for me to represent her, her leg still bore the marks of the injury that she had sustained from falling on a metal pole, such that there was a hole in her leg that went deep into her leg the size of a coin. And that was the condition in which she was brought to court.
My daughter tells me that on her way to university, there are six checkpoints where the morality police inspects women and girls on their way to school. So at virtually any of these points she can be arrested and harassed and taken to prison. We are condemned to live in a tunnel of death.
What will happen next?
I remember during the years when the women’s movement was very active in Iran, I would give many interviews and often also speak to judges. And I would tell them that the colossal injustice and harm that’s being inflicted on women will one day bring Iran to the brink of a precipice, to a point of crisis. Today we have reached that point.
Do you see any evidence of how the government will proceed?
Based on experience, the most likely next steps will be a continuation of crackdown. The word for it in Persian is sarkoob, which literally means “the pounding of the head.” So the crackdown will continue. But so too will the protests. I in no way see a return to the past, no matter the nature of the crackdown. Even if the people’s demands are not met, the reality will have shifted permanently. They will not tolerate the compulsory veil any more.
But everyone says this is not just about the veil. What comes with the veil?
This is a totalitarian system whose presence people feel in their blood and in their flesh on a daily basis. And it’s one that does not grant freedoms of any kind, or accommodate people’s demands in any way. What is increasingly clear is that there is clear demand for change in the regime. What the people want is regime change, and no return to the past. And what we can see from the current protests and strikes that are now being initiated is a very real possibility of regime change.
Does the uncertainty about the health of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei figure in this situation?
Yes, no doubt it’s related but we don’t have a clear picture of what’s going on with him, with his health. We are just hearing rumors.
In my visits to Iran over the years, people who complained about their government also described a limited appetite for confronting it. They often cited the collective trauma of the Revolution—which to Iranians takes in not just the events of 1979 that brought the mullahs to power, but also the eight-year war against Iraq that immediately followed, and claimed at least half a million lives. But are most Iranians today too young to remember that trauma? Did the country age out of its self-restraint?
That’s in fact exactly the case. You can illustrate this with the case of hijab. In the old days, many people who didn’t want to wear the hijab kind of accepted the compulsory hijab, went along with it. But every generation has had its own way. And we see that the new generation is more than willing to take off its veil to shake it in the air, and to directly confront the morality police and say that no, you will not force me to wear the veil. This is something that wasn’t taking place even 10 years ago. Some people who were saying that, you know, the hijab is not a priority. But what the new generation has made abundantly clear is that they are sovereign over their own bodies. This is what younger women and men in Iran are saying.
When protests erupted in Iran in 2019 over fuel prices, the regime shut down the internet, then used live fire on protesters. Access to the internet is being steadily reduced now. Can the protests continue without it?
Consider what was going on in 2009 [when hundreds of thousands of Iranians marched in what came to be known as the Green Revolution, a mass protest of a stolen election]. There were many foreign journalists in Iran because of the elections. And many of my clients were translators who were working with these journalists to help them report on what was going on. The translators were accused of having facilitated “an anti-revolutionary interview.” So there’s no question that internet, WhatsApp, Zoom, and so on are very effective—as well the trial of Hamid Nouri in Sweden [for the war crime of executing dissidents in 1988], and “people’s tribunal” [investigating deaths in the 2019 protests] in London in November.
The fact that there are so many witnesses to what what’s going on makes a huge difference. We see that right now with the films and video clips that are coming from Iran that have been spread by artists, football players, lawyers, and politicians. Iranians outside Iran have played a large role in making the plight of the Iranian people inside visible. The breakdown of these connections and communications networks would would be a devastating blow.
May I share one of my concerns with you?
Please.
You know, in many revolutions, there are concerns about violence. In this revolution, women have no need for violence because the act that they engage in is simply taking off a scarf. It’s completely peaceful. All that women have done is to take off their scarf and stand in front of the morality police and say I’m not wearing this. On many such occasions, women have been surrounded and attacked. But all they’re doing is just lifting the veil and refusing to wear it.
So in this revolution, what we are worried about is the violence of the government, not the people.
We expect support from everyone, because we are we are defending our common values and principles.
Sanjana Karanth
Thu, September 29, 2022
Women protest over the death of 22-year-old Iranian Mahsa Amini in front of the Iranian Consulate in Istanbul on Monday.
Iran has erupted into nationwide protest over women’s rights to bodily autonomy after a Kurdish 22-year-old died in the custody of the country’s “morality police,” who arrested her for not wearing her hijab more conservatively.
Since the demonstrations began earlier this month, tensions have risen between civilians and police in cities across Iran. Here is what we know about the unrest and the global reaction to the protests:
How Did This All Start?
Iran’s morality police enforce the country’s strict religious dress code among citizens — particularly women, who are required to cover up in public.
This includes wearing a hijab, which is a headscarf that some Muslim women around the world choose to wear but that the Iranian government mandates. Under more moderate former President Hassan Rouhani, the morality police eased enforcement and said in 2017 that they would no longer arrest women for violating the code.
But under President Ebrahim Raisi, a hard-liner elected last year, police aggression against women has skyrocketed. The United Nations’ human rights office says young women have been slapped, beaten and shoved into police vehicles in recent months.
Many Iranian women, particularly in major cities, have tried pushing the boundaries of the conservative dress code — with younger generations wearing looser hijabs and trying to avoid authorities.
But on Sept. 13, the morality police arrested Mahsa Amini in the capital city of Tehran for improperly wearing her hijab and sent her to a “re-education” center to receive “guidance” on dressing appropriately. Three days later, she was pronounced dead.
Amini’s death has become a symbol of women’s oppression in Iran, sparking ongoing demonstrations and police violence across dozens of cities, towns and villages. Women and men from various backgrounds are protesting against the government, accusing authorities of killing Amini for not abiding by the country’s strict hijab mandate.
Protesters hold up signs with Amini's name Saturday in London.
What Do The Protests Look Like?
Since Amini’s death, many Iranians have called for the abolition of the morality police and the hijab mandate. Online, viral videos show women taking off and burning their hijabs in bonfires, demanding bodily autonomy and the choice to decide whether they want to wear the headscarf.
Many Iranian women are also recording themselves cutting their hair and leading demonstrations without the hijab, with male protesters behind them in support.
People protest for Amini in Tehran, Iran, on September 19.
Such defiance poses a major risk to the women’s lives. As the protests continue, security forces have increased their aggression against civilians.
According to Iranian state TV, at least 41 protesters and police have been killed in the country since the demonstrations began on Sept. 17. An Associated Press review of statements from authorities tallied at least 13 dead, with police arresting over 1,400 demonstrators.
The Committee To Protect Journalists, a New York-based nonprofit, announced Monday that it had documented the arrests of at least 20 journalists during the demonstrations. “Iranian authorities should be ashamed of themselves for orchestrating this brutal crackdown,” said a CPJ program coordinator.
In addition to police violence and arrests, Iranian authorities have also imposed internet blackouts in a bid to stifle communication about demonstrations. But many people have sought to bypass the restrictions with virtual private networks, or VPNs, that can hide users’ locations.
Pictures of victims of police violence in Iran are placed with flowers on the ground during a protest over Amini's death outside the Iranian Embassy in Madrid on Wednesday. (Photo: Pablo Blazquez Dominguez via Getty Images)
How Is The World Responding?
The unrest in Iran has captivated the world, inspiring others — especially women — to express solidarity and rally for Iranian women’s liberation.
After videos circulated of people in Iran burning their hijabs and cutting their hair, women in the Iranian diaspora followed suit and posting about it on social media. Users are also adding hashtags and commenting on popular posts with Amini’s name to spread awareness.
Several countries and major cities are seeing demonstrations in solidarity with Iranians. Police clashed with masses of demonstrators trying to reach Iran’s embassies in London and Paris earlier this week. Women took to the streets in Argentina holding banners that described the Iranian government as a “religious dictatorship” and demanded “justice.”
On Thursday, police in Oslo, Norway, detained 90 people after a crowd gathered outside the Iranian Embassy to protest Amini’s death, with some holding Kurdish flags.
The U.S., the European Union and several human rights organizations have condemned the violence used against protesters in Iran. The U.S. also imposed sanctions on the morality police for its harsh treatment of demonstrators.
A member of the Iranian community cuts her hair during a rally outside the Iranian Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, on Wednesday. (Photo: Chris Jung/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Why Does It Matter?
The hijab has not always been required in Iran. Women were largely free to choose how they dressed before the overthrow of the monarchy in 1979. While Iranians from across the political spectrum participated in the revolution that toppled the shah, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his followers then seized power and turned the country into a Shiite Islamic state.
Khomeini announced on March 7 of that year that all women had to wear a hijab in Iran, leading to tens of thousands of women protesting in the streets the next day — International Women’s Day.
Iranian women demonstrate for equal rights in Tehran on March 12, 1979.
“It wasn’t just about the hijab, because we knew what was next, taking away women’s rights,” Susan Maybud, who participated in those protests while working with the foreign press, told the AP. “What you’re seeing today is not something that just happened. There’s been a long history of [Iranian] women protesting and defying authority.”
Many in the Muslim community also stress that women’s oppression in Iran is rooted not in the hijab itself, but in denying women the choice of whether to wear one. In countries like France and India, Muslim women are banned from wearing the hijab in public or in schools, even if they want to cover themselves. Officials from these nations frame hijab bans as liberating Muslim women, despite controlling their bodies just as much as a hijab mandate.
“To be (hijabi) or not be (hijabi) is the business of no state or man,” said Muslim writer Yassmin Abdel-Magied, who wears the headscarf, in a tweet last week. “Solidarity with women resisting patriarchal control, the world over.”
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
Katie Mather
A 22-year-old woman answered hundreds of comments about living in Iran on a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread.
The woman, who posted under the username u/just__a__loser, explained in her original post that she wanted to answer any questions about the current turmoil in Iran following the very public death of Mahsa Amini, who was also 22 years old. Amini was taken into a re-education center by Iran’s morality police — a unit within the police department that specifically enforces strict dress codes, especially headscarves for women — and died three days later on Sept. 16.
Since Amini’s death, protests have erupted throughout Iran with women burning their headscarves and cutting off their hair.
“There is a lot going on here and I think there are a lot of questions,” u/just__a__loser wrote in her original post. “We (the people of Iran) are trying to spread the news so ask me anything about recent events or living in Iran as a young woman or why we are protesting or even Iran in general.”
A Reddit moderator left a comment on the thread confirming that u/just__a__loser had privately provided proof of her identity and living situation.
One topic that came up multiple times was whether there was a generational divide between the women participating in the protests and those who weren’t. U/just__a__loser proposed older Iranian women may feel “more suppressed” than her generation, which is why outsiders see more photos of young women protesting in press coverage.
“Most of my generation felt like they don’t have a home or country,” u/just__a__loser explained in another response. “Right now for the first time, we feel like we belong to something, to somewhere and to each other. This is our biggest victory. We are hopeful to win this time and have the freedom to be able to just live, … don’t have to watch the[m] destroy any more life, river, jungle or family.”
One of u/just__a__loser’s messages that drew the most attention was about what people outside of Iran and people with no political power can do to help the protests.
“We need you to talk about it, talk about how we are fighting with nothing in our hand for freedom, how young girls and boys [are] in street shouting ‘WOMEN, LIFE, FREEDOM,'” she said. “This way the regime knows you are watching and they know they have to answer to the world so maybe they [will] be less violent.”
“All we have to do is loudly complain on your behalf?” one person replied. “You came to the right website.”
Read u/just__a__loser’s full AMA here.
Arpan Rai
Wed, September 28, 2022
The death toll after a week of deadly protests in Iran could be as high as 76, a rights group has said, far higher than the figure given by authorities.
Widespread unrest continues after the death of a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by morality police in Tehran for not wearing her hijab properly and died in custody.
At least six women and four children are among the dead, according to Iran Human Rights, as the protests spread across 14 provinces of the country.
More than 70 protesters were arrested on Tuesday.
“At least 76 protesters are confirmed to have been killed by security forces. Most families have been forced to quietly bury their loved ones at night and pressured against holding public funerals,” the rights group is claiming.
State television in the Islamic Republic put the official death toll lower, with only 41 protesters and police killed since the protests began 17 September.
Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iranian women’s rights activist and the daughter of the country’s former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was also arrested on Tuesday on charges of “inciting riots”, the state media reported.
Ms Hashemi was arrested by the country’s security agency for “instigating riots in east Tehran”, which claimed that the “provocations” by the activist failed to bring people to the streets, reported Turkish state news website Anadolu Agency.
Iran has been rocked by protests in which thousands of women have taken part. They are calling for the end of the clerical administration, with tensions being inflamed by a severe crackdown on protestors, many of whom are facing tear gas, live ammunition, birdshot and metal pellets.
Protests turned violent in Iranian cities such as Tehran, Tabriz, Karaj, Qom and Yazd, among many others.
Amnesty International has accused Iran’s security forces of responding to the protests with “unlawful force, including by using live ammunition, birdshot and other metal pellets, killing dozens of people and injuring hundreds of others".
Videos emerging from the Middle-Eastern country showed protesters chanting “woman, life, liberty” and women burning their veils in a symbolic show of dissent.
Slogans of “death to the dictator” – a reference to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – were also heard in the demonstrations. In the Kurdish cities of Sanandaj and Sardasht, footage shows riot police firing at protesters.
Authorities have also clamped down on internet access in several provinces in a bid to restrict sharing of photos and videos on social media.
The UN high commissioner for human rights called on Iran’s clerical heads on Tuesday to “fully respect the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, peaceful assembly and association”.
“Hundreds have also been arrested, including human rights defenders, lawyers, civil society activists and at least 18 journalists,” said UN spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani.
Amini was arrested for donning an “improper hijab”, after which she was severely beaten by “members of the morality police” during her arrest and transfer to the Vozara detention centre.
“Amini fell into a coma at the detention centre and died in hospital on 16 September. Iranian authorities said she died of a heart attack, and claimed her death was from natural causes,” the office of the UN high commissioner of human rights said.
Her death was a result of alleged torture and ill-treatment, it added.
Meanwhile, Iran launched a deadly drone bombing campaign against an Iranian-Kurdish opposition group over the border in northern Iraq, killing at least nine people and wounding 32 others.
Iran’s attacks targeted Koya, 35 miles east of Irbil, said Soran Nuri, a member of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan. The group, known by the acronym KDPI, is a leftist armed opposition force banned in Iran.
Iraq’s Foreign Ministry and the Kurdistan Regional Government have condemned the strikes.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency and broadcaster said the country’s Revolutionary Guard targeted bases of a separatist group in the north of Iraq with “precision missiles” and “suicide drones.”
Shafiq Najib
Wed, September 28, 2022 at 11:01 PM·3 min read
Angelina Jolie attends the "Eternals" photocall on October 25, 2021 in Rome, Italy.
Stefania D'Alessandro/WireImage; Gerardo Vieyra/NurPhoto/Getty
Angelina Jolie is calling attention to the ongoing protests in Iran following the death of a 22-year-old woman named Mahsa Amini.
Amini died Sept. 16 in Iran after being detained by the country's Morality Police for allegedly wearing a hijab too loosely. Demonstrations broke out following Amini's death, and the ongoing unrest has seen women burning their hijabs or cutting their hair in protest.
On Wednesday, the Academy Award winner shared several images taken in the streets of Iran to Instagram, raising awareness about the ongoing situation in the Middle East.
RELATED: CNN's Christiane Amanpour Says Iran President Cancelled an Interview After She Declined to Wear a Hijab
"Respect to the brave, defiant, fearless women of Iran," Jolie wrote in the caption of her post. "All those who have survived and resisted for decades, those taking to the streets today, and Mahsa Amini and all young Iranians like her."
"Women don't need their morals policed, their minds re-educated, or their bodies controlled. They need freedom to live and breathe without violence or threats," Jolie, 47, continued. "To the women of Iran, we see you #WomanLifeFreedom #MahsaAmini."
In the post, Jolie also included a statement that briefly explained the conflict taking place in the country.
"Protests in Iran are in their 12th consecutive night," the slide read. "They started in response to the death of 22 year old Mahsa Amini while in morality police custody."
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"Since the protests began, riot police have attacked protestors with brutal force, and more than 70 people have reportedly been killed," it added.
On Monday, Iran Human Rights reported that "at least 76 protesters are confirmed to have been killed by security forces," including at least six women and four children following the death of Amini.
While the protests rage on, access to social media sites such as Instagram and WhatsApp have been curbed in Iran, Reuters reported.
According to the U.S. Treasury Department, Amini was transferred to a hospital in a coma the same day she was detained for allegedly wearing her hijab too loosely, "and died two days later from internal injuries."
RELATED: Angelina Jolie Champions Afghan Women a Year After Taliban Takeover: 'This Does Not End Here'
In response to Amini's death "and other human rights violations in Iran," State Department Secretary Antony Blinken said last week the U.S. has imposed sanctions — both on Iran's Morality Police and on "senior security officials who have engaged in serious human rights abuses."
As Blinken described in his statement, Iran's Morality Police is part of the country's Law Enforcement Forces, and "arrests women for wearing 'inappropriate' hijab and enforces other restrictions on freedom of expression."
The sanctions will target "seven senior leaders of Iran's security organizations: the Morality Police, Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), the Army's Ground Forces, Basij Resistance Forces, and Law Enforcement Forces," according to the Treasury Department.
"These officials oversee organizations that routinely employ violence to suppress peaceful protesters and members of Iranian civil society, political dissidents, women's rights activists, and members of the Iranian Baha'i community," the Treasury Department statement said.
Meanwhile, the director of Iran Human Rights, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam released a statement Monday via the organization's website, sharing, "The risk of torture and ill-treatment of protesters is serious and the use of live ammunition against protesters is an international crime."
"We call on the international community to decisively and unitedly take practical steps to stop the killing and torture of protesters," he continued. "The world must defend the Iranian people's demands for their fundamental rights."
