What has changed in Iran one year since Mahsa Amini protests erupted?

What has changed in Iran one year since Mahsa Amini protests erupted?

Reuters-September 11, 2023

DUBAI, Sept 11 (Reuters) – Iran’s rulers have intensified a clampdown on dissent nearly one year since the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini sparked protests which spiralled into some of the worst political turmoil since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

HOW DID THE PROTESTS START?

Protests began soon after the Sept. 16 death of Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, 22, who had been arrested by morality police three days earlier for allegedly violating Iran’s mandatory Islamic dress code.

Amini, described as a shy person who minded her own business and stayed clear of politics, was detained as she stepped out of a train station in Tehran.

News of her death circulated on social media. Protests erupted at her funeral in her hometown Saqez and then spread across the country with demonstrators chanting “Woman, life, freedom” in a furious challenge to Iran’s clerical rulers.

While Amini’s family said she had been killed by blows to her head and limbs, the authorities said she had died due to existing medical problems, further fuelling anger over her death.

WHAT DID PROTESTERS WANT?

With women and young people often at the forefront, protesters targeted symbols of the Islamic Republic, burning pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and chanting “Death to the Dictator”.

Women, including schoolgirls, took off and burned headscarves, revolting against laws obliging women to cover their hair and wear loose-fitting clothes.

The protests were particularly intense in areas home to ethnic minorities that have long faced discrimination by the state, including Kurds in the northwest and Baluchis in the southeast.