The woman, Mahsa Amini, 22, was arrested Tuesday in Tehran, the capital, by members of the Guidance Patrol, a special unit that enforces Iran’s mandatory Islamic dress codes, Amini’s mother, Mojhgan Amini, said in an interview on Radio Farda on Thursday. Within hours of the arrest, “we hear she’s in a coma,” her mother said. “They killed my angel,” she said in an interview with BBC Persian on Friday. Police said Amini suffered a heart attack after being taken to a police “training and counseling” center, state media reported. Her family insisted she had no previous health problems and activists claimed she may have been beaten by police. On Friday, as scattered protests erupted in Tehran over the death, the interior ministry ordered an investigation, which it said was ordered by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. Economic protests challenge Iran’s leaders as hopes for a nuclear deal fade The headscarf and other conservative dresses, known as the hijab, have been compulsory for women since the 1979 revolution in Iran. Raisi, a hardline cleric who took office last year, has called for strict enforcement of dress codes. Guided patrols have become increasingly forceful in recent times, with the distinctive green-striped vans appearing in a series of videos that have gone viral online and sparked outrage – including one from last month that appeared to show a female prisoner thrown from a van at speed. Another recent video showed a mother stepping in front of one of the vans while her daughter was inside, trying to stop it from moving by putting her hands on the hood. The government crackdown sparked a protest movement over the summer by Iranian women photographing themselves without headscarves and posting the photos on social media. Amini, a Kurdish woman from western Iran, was visiting Tehran with her brother when she was arrested, her mother said. It was not clear what about her outfit had attracted the police check, but she was arrested as she exited a Tehran metro station. “My son is begging them not to,” said the mother. “He says, ‘we are strangers in Tehran, we don’t know anyone, don’t take her,’” the mother said. “But they beat my son and took my daughter.” A video broadcast by Iranian media on Friday purported to show Amini at the police station. In the video, which she edited, she is seen in a large room full of women, sitting for a moment, then approaching another woman who appears to be in authority and gesturing towards Amini’s clothes, touching her headscarf before walking away. Amini is then seen putting her hands over her face, just before collapsing into a chair. Images of Amini in the hospital, intubated, circulated widely on social media, prompting anguished reactions from activists, celebrities and reformist political figures. In one post, Asghar Farhadi, a prominent Iranian filmmaker, wrote: “We pretend to be asleep in the face of this endless oppression. We are all partners in this crime.” After her death, security forces clashed with people outside Tehran’s Kasra Hospital, north of the capital, where Amini was being treated, according to videos posted on social media. Some videos also showed protesters near Argentina Square chanting against Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “Khamenei is a murderer. his government is void,” they shouted. Babak Dehghanpisheh in Phoenix contributed to this report.
