Mahsa Amini’s family filed a complaint on Wednesday for the arrest of the 22-year-old for wearing the veil wrong and whose death in police custody has sparked protests that have rocked Iran for 12 days, Iranian media reported.
Mahsa Amini’s parents denounced the morality police officers who arrested her and the uniformed officers who interrogated her after her arrest for not dressing correctly, Saleh Nikbakht, one of the family’s lawyers, told the Iranian agency on Wednesday. ISNA.
(Also read: Daughter of former Iranian president is arrested for “inciting” protests for Amini)
Nikbakht stated that they have asked the judicial authorities for a “deep investigation” of what happened from the arrest of the young Kurdish woman until her transfer to Tehran’s Kasra Hospital, where she died.
Amini was arrested on Tuesday the 13th by the so-called Morale Police for considering that she was wearing the Islamic veil wrongly.and was transferred to a police station to attend “an hour of re-education”.
He died on Friday the 16th in the hospital where he arrived in a coma after suffering a heart attack, which the authorities have attributed to health problems, something rejected by the family.
The president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisí, then promised to order an “urgent and precise” investigation to clarify what happened and shortly after the country’s Parliament announced that it would carry out its own investigations.
But those promises did not convince the thousands of young people who took to the streets.
(You can read: Iran: the protests over the death of a young man that cause unprecedented social mobilization)
Several cities have joined the protests over Mahsa Amini’s death.
The police, for their part, described his death as “unfortunate” and have denied any responsibility.
The protests have been repeated for 12 nights, although in recent days they have lost strength, amid police repression, internet restrictions and the arrests of activists and journalists.
The police, together with the basijis (paramilitary militias loyal to the Iranian regime), have repressed the protests, using batons, tear gas, water cannons, and according to the UN, live ammunition.
(Also: Tehran universities suspend face-to-face classes amid protests)
Among those arrested is the activist Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, daughter of the late former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a key figure in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iranian state television stated three days ago that 41 people have died, but clarified that this is its own count and not official figures.
The death toll stands at 76, according to the Oslo-based NGO Iran Human Rights.
![Amini died in hospital.](https://www.eltiempo.com/images/1x1.png)
Iranian newspapers reported Amini’s death.
EFE/EPA/ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH
This Wednesday, it was learned that the president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisí, will offer a televised speech, after 12 days of protests over the death of the young Mahsa Amini.
Raisí will speak on “the most important internal and external issues of the country” after the news at 9:00 p.m. (5:30 p.m. GMT), announced the website of the presidency.
The president was at the UN General Assembly in New York when Amini died on Friday the 16th and from there promised an “urgent and precise” investigation.
In a press conference during his stay in the US, Raisí played down the importance of the protests, assuring that they are something “normal”, but made it clear that he would not allow “vandalism”.
Family insists he was beaten
His family also reiterated that Amini died from beatings by the authorities.
Mahsa Amini died after a “violent blow to the head” by morale police on the day of his arrest in Tehran, said his cousin who lives in Iraq.
The 22-year-old was in the Iranian capital for a family vacation when on September 13 she ran into the morality police, responsible for enforcing the strict dress code required of women in the Islamic Republic, Erfan Salih Mortezaee, 34, told AFP.
He has been installed for a year in the Kurdistan of Iraq (north), where he has joined the Iranian Kurdish nationalist group Komala, which has been carrying out an insurrection against the Iranian regime for a long time.
(Keep reading: Iran blocks access to social networks due to protests that have already claimed 17 lives)
The policemen beat Jhina (Mahsa Amini’s Kurdish given name) in front of her brother, who witnessed it
He claimed to have called Mahsa Amini’s mother, who told him about the events of that fateful September 13.
According to him, the young woman, accompanied by her parents and a 17-year-old brother, was in Tehran to visit relatives.
Mahsa, her brother and other women in the family took a walk around the capital, and as they left the Haghani metro station, “the morality police stopped them,” says Mortezaee, interviewed at a base in Komala near Suleimaniya.
The younger brother tried to explain to the policemen that they were “in Tehran for the first time” and “didn’t know the local traditions”. It was useless.
“The policeman told her: we are going to take her away, instill the rules in her and teach her how to wear the hijab and how to dress,” added the cousin, who assured that the young woman was “dressed like all women in Iran, and she was wearing a hijab.” .
![Mahsa Amini](https://www.eltiempo.com/images/1x1.png)
Mahsa Amini was only held for a few hours before being taken to hospital.
“The policemen beat Jhina (Mahsa Amini’s Kurdish given name) in front of her brother, who witnessed it,” added Mortezaee. “They slapped her, with a cane they hit her hands, her legs,” she insists.
They also pepper-sprayed her brother’s face, to neutralize him, before taking the women away in a police van.
(You can read: Death of the young woman arrested for wearing the veil wrong shakes Iran)
The beatings continued aboard the vehicle, according to Mortezaee.
“When they hit her on the head, she lost consciousness,” he says.
After her arrival at the police station, it took at least an hour and a half to be taken to the hospital, according to Mortezaee. After three days in a coma, the young woman passed away on September 16.
*With information from AFP and EFE
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