Protesters can be arrested, imprisoned and even sentenced to death for such statements.

Protests in Iran, including in the country's capital, Tehran, began after the death of

Mahsa Amini

, a 22-year-old women's rights defender from the Kurdish minority.

On September 13, she was detained by the Moravian police for a loose hijab, a few hours later Amini was hospitalized in a coma, and three days later her death was announced due to a "sudden heart attack."

According to eyewitness reports cited by the UN Human Rights Office, the police beat Amini's head against a car and beat her with batons.

According to Amini's relatives, she never had any heart problems and they were also not allowed to see Amini's body before the burial.

Hundreds of Iranians, many of them young, took to the streets of Tehran, Sekez — the girl's hometown — and other cities to protest police violence and, more broadly, the Iranian authorities' brutal crackdown on dissent.

During the protests, several women tore off their hijabs and defiantly waved them in the air, two women publicly burned them, and at least one protester cut off her hair.

Iranian leaders have promised to investigate Amini's death.

In the protests, they blamed foreign intervention, without specifying the names of the countries involved, and the opposition from abroad: they allegedly used Amini's death to incite public unrest.

  • According to the rules adopted after the Iranian revolution of 1979, women are required to dress modestly in public, wearing a hijab and a long loose robe.

    The enforcement of the rules is monitored by the morals police, which includes both men and women.

  • The previous president of Iran

    , Hassan Rouhani

    , accused the police of "excessive aggressiveness".

    In 2017, the head of the police announced that women would no longer be arrested for violating the dress code.

  • However, since August 2021, since the beginning of the presidency of

    Ibrahim Rais

    , police brutality has increased again.

    The UN Human Rights Office reports that the police routinely insult young women, slap them, beat them with truncheons, and shove them into police cars.