Coverage Of Iran Protests On September 19

Mahsa Amini’s death in the custody of hijab enforcement patrols, has shaken the country, with reports saying police forces fired at protesters in Divandarreh, where at least 10 people were injured, and Saqqez in the Kurdistan province on Monday. People in the capital Tehran and the central city of Esfahan (Isfahan) are also holding on-and-off protests with bouts of clashes with security forces. 

Business owners in the cities with large Kurdish populations such as Baneh, Marivan, her hometown Saqqez, and Kurdistan provincial capital have staged a general strike to protest the murder of Mahsa Amini, also known as Zhina, announcing that they will continue the strikes for several days despite warnings by the authorities. 

Videos sent to Iran International show police using tear gas against people while many citizens have opened the doors of their houses to shelter the protesters. 

In one video, a group of students stand outside the office of their university’s cleric, most probably the representative of the Supreme Leader at the university, chanting “Mullahs Must Get Lost” as the cleric is watching them through his window.

While authorities are lying about the circumstances of Mahsa Amini’s death and defending the Islamic religious patrols, Tehran’s “morality” police chief Colonel Mirzaei has been “suspended” until further investigation into Mahsa’s death. 

The medical documents and dozens of exclusive images sent to Iran International by a hacktivist group vividly show a skull fracture on the right side of her head caused by a severe trauma to the skull, which corroborate earlier accounts by her family and doctors about her being hit several times on the head, proving that the Iranian police's claim that she suffered a heart attack was untrue.

Images of her chest show bilateral diffuse alveolar hemorrhage and damage due to aspiration pneumonia, secretion retention and superimposed infection. Doctors say the results are compatible with acute respiratory distress syndrome due to brain trauma.

The 22-year-old woman’s death in custody by the hijab police has led to indignation among Iranians and several anti-regime protests in different cities.

A source from the hospital where she died told Iran International on Saturday that her brain tissue was crushed after "multiple blows" to the head, adding that Amini was taken to Kasra Hospital in capital Tehran while she was not responsive and brain dead.

The source added that her lungs were filled with blood when she was transferred to the hospital and it was clear that she “could not be revived." 

This source emphasized that Mahsa's condition "was such that she could not be saved nor was surgery possible because her brain tissue was seriously damaged and it was clear that the patient was not injured by a single punch and must have received many blows to her head."

In Sanandaj, capital of Iran's Kordestan (Kurdistan) Province, and Saqqez, a city of around 170,000 in the same province, thousands took to the streets for a second night. Protesters in Sanandaj chanted “Kordestan, Graveyard of Fascists” and “Down with the Dictator”, in Kurdish and Persian.

The 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, known as Zhina to family, originally from Saqqez, collapsed at a detention center two hours after her arrest by a hijab police patrol in Tehran. She passed away Friday afternoon at Kasra Hospital in northern Tehran. Hospital staff told Iran International that she was brought in near death in a coma with what appeared to have been multiple blows to her head.

According to some reports nearly 40 protesters in Saqqez Saturday evening were wounded by security forces who used shotguns and tear gas against protesters with at least two young men in critical condition.

On Sunday, Police used tear gas and water canons to disperse protesters in Sanandaj and fired with shotguns at protesters again, reportedly wounding at least ten people, and arrested over a dozen.

People also took to the streets in Gohardasht district of Karaj, capital of Alvand Province only half an hour from the capital Tehran and in Mahabad, a city of around 170,000 in West Azarbaijan Province, with a majority Kurdish population.

According to Hengaw Human Rights Organization, a Kurdish rights group, security forces shot at protesters in Sanandaj, wounding at least nine people including two women.

In the capital Tehran, dozens of students marched inside the campus of Tehran University Sunday and chanted “Iran Is Bleeding, from Kordestan to Tehran”. Some students carried placards with “Women, Life, Freedom” and. “I Don’t Want to Die” written on them.

Many female protesters have been removing their headscarves in defiance of compulsory hijab and some women have posted photos and videos on social media showing them cutting their own hairor burning their headscarves.

President Ebrahim Raisi on Sunday made a phone call to the family of Mahsa Amini and told them he considered their daughter and “all Iranian girls” as his own children and had ordered a thorough investigation of the incident.

Authorities have so far denied any wrongdoing and not taken any responsibility for the young woman’s death. Police say she died in custody from a “heart attack” but have had very little success in convincing millions of Iranians who know violence against women arrested for hijab is quite common.

Mahsa’s father has told the media that other women arrested at the same time as his daughter say she was beaten but do not dare to come forward.

Kurdish activists and political groups have urged people in Kurdish regions of western Iran to shut their shops on Monday in protest to the violence against women. According to Hengaw, security forces have threatened most businesses in the large western city of Kermanshah, not to join the strike called in the neighboring Kordestan Province.

Various rights and political groups have issued statements over the incident which many consider “state violence”.

“The murder of our daughter, Mahsa, is a manifestation of the gradual killing levied on all of us on a daily basis and at a societal level,” a group of workers of Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Complex in southwestern Iran which has one of the most organized and active labor rights groups in the country, said in a statement on their Telegram channel. “The state’s murder of Mahsa won’t remain without res

"Your daughter and all Iranian girls are my own children, and my feeling about this incident is like losing one of my own dear ones," Raisi’s office quoted him as telling the Aminis, promising them to carefully deal with the "incident".

“I was informed of this incident when I was on a trip to Uzbekistan [to attend the latest Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit]. I immediately ordered my [administration] to investigate this as a special case,” he said, adding that “Rest assured will demand the relevant state bodies to follow up on this case until all its aspects come into light.”

The 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who was arrested on Tuesday by the morality police and was taken to hospital two hours later after losing consciousness. She passed away Friday afternoon at Kasra Hospital in Tehran from severe damage to her brain.

Hospital staff told Iran International that Amini received repeated blows to her head and was near death when she was brought in.

Numerous condemnations and protests are still following Amini’s death, with many state officials calling for the elimination of the hijab enforcement patrols. 

Masoumeh Ebtekar, former President Hassan Rouhani's vice president for women and family affairs, said on Sunday that the previous administration tried to cancel the patrols, but hardliners in the country did not allow it. 

According to the Hengaw Human Rights Organization, a Kurdish rights group, on Sunday an 18-year-old man lost one of his eyes after being hit with shot gun bird shots and four others have been transferred to a hospital in Tabriz because their conditions were so critical they could not be treated in Saqqez in Kurdistan province, the hometown of the victim. 

The 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who was arrested on Tuesday by the morality police, was taken to hospital two hours later after losing consciousness. She passed away Friday afternoon at Kasra Hospital in Tehran for severe damage to her brain.

Hospital staff told Iran International that Amini received repeated blows to her head and was near death when she was brought in.

Protests are taking place in the provincial capital Sanandaj as well in several locations in Tehran since her death, with people chanting slogans against the authorities, including the Supreme Leader. 

Iranian students at University of Tehran held a protest rally on Sunday, chanting “From Kurdistan to Tehran: The Entire Iran Covered in Blood.”

Fifteen Iranian activists who were going to hold a gathering outside the Parliament’s building in Tehran in protest at the death of Amini have also been arrested, while sporadic clashes are being reported from several cities across the country.