Iran said on Friday an inquest into Mahsa Amini’s death in custody found she lost her life to illness, rather than reporting beatings that sparked three weeks of bloody protests.
Amini, 22, died on September 16, three days after she fell into a coma after being arrested by vice squads in Tehran for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women.
Anger over her death has sparked the largest wave of protests to rock Iran in nearly three years and a crackdown that has killed dozens of protesters and caused numerous arrests.
Despite the use of deadly force by security forces, the protests, led by women, have continued for 20 consecutive days and nights, according to online videos verified by AFP.
The Iranian forensic organization said Friday that “Mahsa Amini’s death was not caused by blows to the head and vital organs and limbs of the body.”
The death of Amini, whose Kurdish first name is Jhina, is related to “a brain tumor operation at the age of eight,” a statement said.
Amini’s surviving parents have filed a complaint against the officers involved, and one of her cousins ??living in Iraq told AFP news agency she died from “a severe blow to the head”.
Other young girls have lost their lives in the protests, but Amnesty International says Iran coerced televised confessions from their families to “acquit themselves of responsibility for their deaths”.
– “Suicide” –
The mother of 16-year-old Nika Shahkarami, who died after going missing on September 20, insisted on Thursday she was killed by the state after joining an anti-Hijab protest in Tehran.
Nasrin Shahkarami also accused authorities of threatening her with a forced confession over the death of her 16-year-old daughter Nika.
“I saw my daughter’s body myself… The back of her head showed that she had received a very bad blow when her skull collapsed. That’s how she was killed,” she said in a video posted online by Radio Farda, a US-funded Persian broadcaster based in Prague.
Iran has since denied reports its security forces killed another teenage girl, Sarina Esmailzadeh, at a rally in Karaj, west of Tehran.
Its website quoted a prosecutor as saying an investigation showed that Esmailzadeh, 16, “committed suicide” by jumping from a building.
In a sweeping crackdown, Iran has blocked access to social media, including Instagram and WhatsApp, and security forces have rounded up high-profile supporters of the movement, including journalists and pop stars.
Protesters have sought ways to avoid detection, with schoolgirls hiding their faces while shouting “death to the dictator” and defacing images of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in verified videos.
Other footage shows people chanting the protest call “Woman, life, freedom” from their apartment windows under the cover of night.
Another form of protest emerged Friday morning when fountains in Tehran appeared to spill blood after an artist dyed their water red to reflect the bloody action.
– ‘Toll much higher’ –
Street violence across Iran, dubbed “riots” by authorities, has resulted in dozens of deaths – mostly of protesters but also members of the security forces.
Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights says at least 92 protesters have been killed in the crackdown so far.
Iranian security forces have rounded up high-profile supporters of the movement, including activists, journalists and pop stars.
Despite these measures, demonstrations continued in cities and towns across the Islamic Republic.
“Death to the dictator,” a group of young women in the northern city of Rasht can be heard in a video posted online on Thursday and confirmed by AFP.
Other verified footage shows women shouting “Azadi,” Persian for freedom, and clapping loudly as they march down a street in the city of Qods, west of the capital.
Amnesty International has confirmed the deaths of 52 people killed by Iranian security forces but believes the “actual death toll is far higher”.
A statement released a week ago said Iran was deliberately using deadly force to quell protests led by women.
She said she received a leaked document, issued Sept. 21 to commanders of armed forces in all provinces, ordering them to “seriously confront” protesters.
Another leaked document showed that the commander in Mazandaran province had ordered the armed forces “to meet mercilessly any riots by rioters and anti-revolutionaries, going so far as to cause deaths.”
