Tehran: Iranian police fired tear gas to disperse protestors in Sanandaj, where hundreds are rallying against the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, following her detention by Iran’s morality police.
“Iranian police have fired tear gas to disperse a rally in the western, mainly Kurdish city of Sanandaj, where protesters were decrying the death of a young woman while in police custody in Tehran last week,” international news agency AP reports.
Late Sunday, police arrested several people from about 500 protesters who had gathered on Sunday at Azadi Square in Sanandaj, the capital of Iran’s Kurdistan province.
The protesters smashed car windows and set fire to street garbage cans.
Massive protest following Amini’s death
Amini died on Friday, falling into a coma, three days after she was arrested and reportedly beaten by morality police in Tehran.
She was Kurdish, and was buried on Saturday in her home city of Saqez, in western Iran.
The death sparked a massive protest on social media with women removing their headscarves in protest at the compulsory wearing of hijabs at Amini’s ceremony.
Some women also cut their hair and set fire to their hijabs in a symbolic protest against the country’s law requiring women over the age of seven to wear religious headscarves.
“Iranian women show their anger by cutting their hair and burning their hijab to protest against the killing of #Mahsa_Amini by hijab police,” Iranian journalist and activist Masih Alinejad tweeted.
https://twitter.com/AlinejadMasih/status/1571479790883946500?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1571479790883946500%7Ctwgr%5E9e9b4ae6dc0e66aeb55bcf659cbbd018c9e36552%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews24online.com%2Fworld%2Fwhy-women-are-cutting-hair-burning-hijabs-in-iran%2F32737%2F
From the age of 7 if we don’t cover our hair we won’t be able to go to school or get a job. We are fed up with this gender apartheid regime, she added.
