Members of the fifth Iranian paramilitary volunteer group died on Sunday in a match with anti-jilbab protesters when the country’s president Ebrahim Raisi promised to deal with “firmly” with demonstrators who came to the streets to protest the death of Mahsa Amini, who died in detention in detention police. Member of the Paramiliter Volunteer Group, Basij, was injured on Thursday in the city of Urmia in Iran northwest during the match with “rioters and criminals”, said Iranian State News Agency Irna.
The protest was triggered after the death of Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after his arrest for allegedly failed to comply with Iran’s strict rules about women’s clothing wearing “improper hijab”. Hundreds of protests were held throughout the country. Iranian women were seen burning their headscarves and cutting their hair to mark their protests over Amini’s death and against the mandatory hijab. At least 41 people have been killed during Iran’s protest, Al Jazeera reported quoting government television.
Previously, the Iranian President promised to deal with “firmly” with a protest that had sweeping the country since the death of a woman detained by the Iranian morality police. Raisi’s comments on Saturday came when the protesters took to the streets for the ninth night in a row. The Iranian president spoke to a relative of a Basij paramilitary member who had been killed while participating in the crush in the northeast city of Mashhad.
The president was quoted said that Iran must “deal with firmly with those who oppose the security and peace of the country,” according to Al Jazeera quoting government media. The President emphasized “the need to distinguish between protest and disturb public order and security, and call the event … riots,” reported government media.
According to Al Jazeera, Mahsa Amini, 22, was visiting Tehran with her family when she was detained by a specialist police unit. During detention after some time, he suffered a heart attack and was immediately taken to the hospital in collaboration with emergency services. “Unfortunately, he died and his body was moved to the medical examination office,” said government television on Friday, reporting Al Jazeera.
The announcement came the day after the Tehran police confirmed that Amini had been detained with another woman because of the “instruction” about the rule. After the death of Mahsa Amini, some women’s protesters cut their hair and burned the hijab to protest the mandatory veil of women. Amini fell in a coma at the detention center and died at the hospital on September 16.
Iranian authorities said he died of a heart attack, and claimed his death came from a natural goal. However, several reports show that Amini’s death was caused by alleged torture and bad treatment, experts said. Amini’s death appeared amidst the controversy that grew both inside and outside of Iran over the behavior of moral police, which formally known as gasht-e ershad (guidance patrol).
The compulsory clothing code, which applies to all nationality and religion, is not only Muslim Iran, requires women to hide their hair and neck with the hijab, report Al Jazeera. His death has now become a symbol of oppression of violence faced by women in Iran for decades. For decades, women increasingly pushed back, especially in big cities, wearing their headscarves far in their heads to express their hair.
