On 16 September 2022, a 22-year-old Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini (Persian: مهسا امینی), also known as Jina Amini or Zhina Amini (Persian: ژینا امینی, Kurdish: ژینا ئەمینی), died in Tehran, Iran, under suspicious circumstances, allegedly due to police brutality.
The Guidance Patrol, the morality police of Iran's Law Enforcement Command, arrested Amini for not wearing the hijab in accordance with government standards. Police said she suddenly went into heart failure at a station, fell on the floor, and died after two days in a coma. Eyewitnesses and women who were detained with Amini said she was severely beaten, which in addition to her leaked medical scans, led independent observers to diagnose cerebral hemorrhage and stroke.
Amini's death resulted in a series of large-scale protests across the country which garnered international attention, including a statement from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, putting a focus on violence against women in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Several leaders, organizations, and celebrities around the world condemned the incident as an example of the systemic abuse of women by Iran's morality police and expressed solidarity with the protesters. The United States Department of the Treasury furthermore imposed sanctions on the morality police and Iranian leaders in various security organizations.
In response to the protests, the government of Iran not only suppressed the protests, shooting protesters with birdshot and metal pellets, deploying tear gas and water cannons, but also blocked access to many apps including Instagram and WhatsApp, and limited internet accessibility to reduce protesters' ability to organize. These may be the most severe internet restrictions in Iran since 2019, when the internet was shut down completely. [Wikipedia]
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