Protests continued in Boston on Saturday after a 22-year-old Iranian woman was arrested and killed by the country’s morality police for wearing a loose hijab.
More than 200 demonstrators from independent Iranians in Boston held placards and chanted together in Copley Square to protest persistent repression and human rights abuses by the Islamic Republic.
“As the whole world knows there is a revolution underway,” said the 26-year-old female organizer, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. increase.”
According to her, the most pressing problem now is that the government is executing innocent protesters without due process or proper trial.
“That’s what drives us to demand freedom and justice, even in the freezing cold,” said the woman who grew up in Iran and lives in Boston.
Protests began in Boston, Iran and around the world after Gina Martha Amini was arrested on Sept. 13 while visiting Tehran with her family. She was detained by police for improperly wearing the hijab, which is required by Iranian law to cover a woman’s hair completely in public.
Amini died three days after collapsing in a police station and slipping into a coma.An Iranian coroner said in October that the young woman had died of an underlying medical condition and had been in police custody. It was ruled that it was not due to the beating received on the occasion.
The findings were later challenged by a group of Iranian doctors who said the cause of death was a blow to the head.
Amini’s death has sparked a women-led movement in Iran. According to organizers who spoke with the Herald, many women risked their lives to protest the repression, appearing in public without wearing headscarves and potentially being executed.
“At the moment, it’s not just women’s rights in Iran,” said the organizers. “We go further than that. (People) cannot walk freely through the streets without being executed.”
After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the country’s current morality police regulate modest dress and socializing among unmarried or unrelated members of the opposite sex.
Enforcement has been looser in recent years, but a crackdown was ordered by the regime’s new president, Ebrahim Raisi, who took power in 2021, leading to resistance from many Iranians, especially after Amini’s death.
The US government has imposed sanctions on the Iranian government for cracking down on protesters and blocking internet access.
“This revolution will not back down,” said Boston organizers. “People are fed up with the complete lack of human rights.
Materials from the Associated Press were used in this report.
