According to semi-official news outlet Fars News on Monday, Iranian authorities described Mahsa Amini’s death as an “unfortunate tragedy” and disputed that she was physically hurt while being held.
Amini, 22, was stopped and arrested by Iran’s morality police on Tuesday in Tehran, and he passed away on Friday after going into a coma.
She appeared to be falling inside a “re-education” facility where she had been taken by the morality police to receive “advice” on her attire, according to CCTV footage posted by Iran’s state television.
At a press conference on Monday, Hossein Rahimi, the commander of the Greater Tehran Police, said, “The situation was sad for us and we desire to never witness such incidents.”
Amini was not physically hurt during or after being brought into prison, according to Rahimi, who also claimed that “false claims” had been leveled against the Iranian police.
The cops had “done everything,” he continued, to keep her alive.
Following her detention on Tuesday, Iranian authorities claimed that Amini had died from a “heart attack,” but her family claims that she didn’t have a pre-existing condition, according to Emtedad news, an Iranian pro-reform media source that supposedly spoke to Amini’s father.
As demonstrators clashed with police in Iranian cities in the northwest Kurdistan province over the weekend, students in Tehran came to the streets on Monday to demand justice and accountability for the killing of Amini, according to semi-official news outlets.
Heartbreaking: Mahsa Amini, a beautiful 22-year-old Kurdish woman, dies after being violently arrested & beaten by #Iranian police for wearing an "inappropriate hijab." Outraged Iranians gathering outside the hospital. #PrayForIran https://t.co/BJxUWvTE53 pic.twitter.com/7Z9UgYumH1
— Nadine Maenza (@nadinemaenza) September 16, 2022
On Monday, ladies in Tehran were seen in a video removing their hijabs and brandishing them while yelling, “Death to the tyrant.” A motorcycle was shown in another video burning on a street close to the capital’s justice building.
The government-aligned news source Fars released a video of protesters rallying late on Sunday in Sanandaj, the capital of the Kurdistan province, and yelling anti-official chants.
Fars claims that despite the police claiming that Amini’s death was the result of “torture,” protesters were “not convinced.”
Following Amini’s funeral service in her hometown of Saqqez on Saturday, protesters reportedly threw rocks at the governor’s office, according to semi-official Mehr news. Security officers reportedly used tear gas to disperse them, according to Fars.
According to a report published on Sunday by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, a Norwegian-registered organization that keeps track of human rights abuses in Iran, at least 38 people were hurt during rallies in both cities.
Robert Malley, the US special envoy to Iran, urged Iran to “stop its improper violence against women for expressing their fundamental rights” on Twitter on Friday.
He continued, “Those accountable for her killing should be held accountable.”
“Categorically rejects any interventionist words from American authorities affecting Iran’s domestic affairs,” said Nasser Kanaani, a spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry.
He continued, “If the American government cares about the Iranian nation, it should end its harsh, one-sided, and illegal blockade against the Iranian population that has been in place for decades.”
