What's happened
Iranian authorities arrest individuals and prevent vigils and protests commemorating the death of Mahsa Amini
Why it matters
The crackdown on protests and the arrest of individuals by Iranian security forces highlights the ongoing repression and attempts to silence dissent in the country. It also underscores the significance of Amini's death, which sparked widespread protests and condemnation of the Iranian regime's treatment of women and human rights abuses.
What the papers say
The Iranian authorities have arrested Mahsa Amini's father and prevented her family from holding a vigil to commemorate the first anniversary of her death, according to rights groups. (Al Jazeera) Meanwhile, security forces shot a young Kurdish man near Amini's grave, leaving him brain dead. (The Times) The crackdown on protests and arrests by Iranian security forces comes as the country marks the anniversary of Amini's death, which sparked widespread protests against the regime. (France 24)
How we got here
Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, died in police custody last year after being arrested for allegedly violating Iran's mandatory headscarf law. Her death led to months of protests against the Iranian regime and drew international condemnation. The protests were met with a brutal crackdown by security forces, resulting in hundreds of deaths and thousands of arrests. The anniversary of Amini's death has reignited tensions and prompted further attempts by the authorities to suppress dissent.
More on these topics
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Iran, also called Persia, and officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered to the northwest by Armenia and Azerbaijan, to the north by the Caspian Sea, to the northeast by Turkmenistan, to the east by Afghanistan a
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On 16 September 2022, a 22-year-old Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini (Persian: مهسا امینی), also known as Jina Amini or Zhina Amini (Persian: ژینا امینی; Kurdish: ژینا ئەمینی), died in Tehran, Iran, under suspicious circumstance
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The Islamic Republic News Agency, or IRNA, is the official news agency of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is government-funded and controlled under the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. The agency also publishes the newspaper Iran.
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Kurds or Kurdish people are an Iranic ethnic group native to a mountainous region of Western Asia known as Kurdistan, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria.