NAccording to media reports, an engineer was sentenced to 74 lashes after a protest against the headscarf requirement in Iran. As the Norway-based human rights organization Hengaw announced on Saturday, the sentence was suspended for five years.
Seynab Kasemi attracted a lot of attention in February for demonstratively throwing her headscarf to the ground during a speech during an event. Video footage of the action was widely shared on the Internet. The woman had protested against an engineering association’s decision not to allow her to run for board elections because of an ill-fitting headscarf.
Shortly before the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death
The authorities have also arrested six people who are said to have planned protests next week to mark the first anniversary of the death of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini. As the Tasnim news agency reported on Saturday, the secret service accused the suspects of wanting to “cause unrest” in the coming days. Five of those arrested operated websites that have now been blocked. The people were therefore taken into custody by the Revolutionary Guards’ secret service in the southwest of the country.
On Tuesday, the authorities had already arrested one of Mahsa Amini’s uncles. The family’s lawyer has been in court in Tehran since the end of August. He is accused of “propaganda against the Islamic Republic” because he spoke to the media about the Amini case.
On Wednesday, Iran’s intelligence services also announced the “identification of a network” that, with “financial support from the US State Department”, was “involved in mobilizing women” and planning to “organize unrest” in the country.
The first anniversary of Amini’s death is September 16th. The young woman died in police custody after being arrested for allegedly violating Islamic dress codes. Her death was followed in the fall by the largest mass protests in decades.
The authorities reacted with great severity. Hundreds of people were killed in the protests, including dozens of members of the security forces. Thousands of people were arrested in connection with the protests.
The six arrested men were involved in last year’s protests, Tasnim reported. The actions were initially directed against the compulsory headscarf as part of a women’s movement, then against the entire Islamic system. Since then, many women in the country’s major cities have ignored the obligation to wear a headscarf in protest against the mullahs’ Islamic system of rule.
#Iranian #woman #sentenced #lashes #protesting #headscarf