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Six months ago this week, Mahsa Amini was arrested for allegedly flouting Iran’s strict dress code for women. Within days she was dead, sparking the country’s biggest protests in years.
The 22-year ethnic Kurd became a household name inside Iran, a rallying point for demands for change. Around the world, she became a hero for women’s rights campaigners and a symbol for Western opponents of the Islamic republic.
Amini was visiting the capital Tehran with her brother and cousins when she was arrested as they were leaving a metro station in the city centre last September.
Accused of wearing “inappropriate” attire, she was taken to a police station by officers of the morality police.
There she collapsed after a quarrel with a policewoman, according to a short surveillance video released by the authorities.
She spent three days in hospital in a coma before her death on September 16, which the authorities blamed on underlying health issues.
For many, the young woman from the western city of Saqez personified the fight against the obligation to wear the headscarf. Her name became the rallying point for a protest movement that gripped the country for months.
The epitaph engraved on her tomb reads: “You are not dead Mahsa, your name has become a symbol”.
Almost overnight, her portrait became ubiquitous in Iran’s cities, fly-postered on walls and held aloft by protesters. It even made the cover of some magazines published inside Iran, including the March edition of the monthly Andisheh Pouya.
“Unknown before her death, Mahsa has become a symbol of oppression and her innocent face reinforces this image,” said political scientist Ahmad Zeidabadi.
Call for openness
The protests over her death in custody, which began in the capital and in her native Kurdistan province, swiftly mushroomed into a…
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