The Islamic Republic of Iran is facing severe backlash following the death of a 22-year-old Iranian woman Mahsa Amini. Several reports state that Mahsa was brutally beaten by the ‘morality police’ for not observing the hijab correctly, which ultimately led to her death after she slipped into a coma.  

Raw footage from the streets of Iran’s capital city Tehran, showed women burning their headscarves while others cheered on. Other videos portrayed harrowing scenes of anti-government protestors pulling the headscarf off a woman passing by, while some attacked people who didn’t want to join the rather violent protests. 

Other people even went on to burn the flag of Iran, setting security personnel on fire, and even killing a head security officer in Kurdistan. In the wake of these violent protests, around seven other people were also killed. Public properties were vandalized and, in an attempt, to seemingly halt the protests, the government has temporarily blocked all social media platforms.

Amini was reportedly detained on Tuesday, September 13 and taken to a “guidance center” where she suddenly collapsed and died three days later. The Iranian Police have vehemently denied mistreating Amini, and also released a close-up footage of Mahsa Amini casually walking around the center with no visible signs of pain or injuries, shortly before she collapsed. 

Some reports state that Mahsa was taken to the hospital following a sudden cardiac arrest. The CT scan allegedly showed symptoms of Hydrocephalus. Reports on Press TV claimed that she even had a brain tumor when she was eight years old as well as epilepsy alongside type 1 diabetes. But her family says she had no history of heart trouble and denied all the health-related allegations.

However, hospital staff told Iran International that Amini received repeated blows to her head and was near death when she was brought in. Amjad Amini, her father, told an Iranian news website that witnesses saw her being shoved into a police car.

“I asked for access to [videos] from cameras inside the car as well as courtyard of the police station, but they gave no answer,” he said.

He also accused the police of not transferring her to the hospital promptly, saying she could have been resuscitated.

Amini’s father also claimed that he wasn’t allowed to see his daughter’s body when he arrived at the hospital but he did notice a bruising on her foot.

In an attempt to allegedly reduce the eruption of protests, the authorities pressured Amini’s father to bury her at night, however they requested to let them bury her at 8am. She was later buried on Saturday in Saqez, her home city.

Over the years, Iran’s ‘morality security’ personnel have been condemned over their mistreatment of people and particularly with young women. However, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is yet to comment on Amini’s case, is known to support a softer attitude towards women who do not necessarily comply with the official state dress code.

Abdolreza Pourzahabi, Khamenei’s representative in Iran’s Kurdish province, said the Supreme Leader “is sad” and that the family’s sorrow “is his sorrow too.” He added that he hopes the family shows “good will to help bring back calm in society.”

According to the state-run IRNA news agency, President Ebrahim Raisi has asked Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi to “investigate the cause of the incident with urgency and special attention.”

Iran International stated that President Ebrahim Raisi had a phone conversation on Sunday with the family of Mahsa Amini and said,”Your daughter and all Iranian girls are my own children, and my feeling about this incident is like losing one of my own dear ones,” Raisi’s office quoted him as telling the Aminis, promising them to carefully deal with the situation.

“I was informed of this incident when I was on a trip to Uzbekistan [to attend the latest Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit]. I immediately ordered my [administration] to investigate this as a special case,” he said, adding that he would “demand the relevant state bodies to follow up on this case until all its aspects come into light.”

Numerous condemnations and protests are still following Amini’s death, with many state officials calling for the removal of hijab enforcement laws as the state dress code.

Seyyed Mohammad Marandi, an Iranian political analyst and a professor of English Literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran, lashed out at the US and a few European countries over their rather crude comments on the current situation in Iran. 

He said that the West should not preach to others on the matter as they are encouraging violence against the Iranian administration and nation through various methods, and continue to impose sanctions against the country.

“They encourage violence. They impose sanctions. They helped [slain Iraqi dictator] Saddam Hussein in his war on Iran. They helped the [deposed] Shah [Mohammad Reza Pahlavi] stay in power. They gave Saddam chemical weapons. They have no rights to speak about human rights, neither to Iranian people nor anyone else,” Seyyed Mohammad Marandi told Press TV in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.

“The United States itself is well-known for police violence. Anyone who is acquainted with the United States knows that the American police doesn’t joke with anyone,” he said.

“The United States and the Europeans have destroyed some much of our region through wars and sanctions,” he added. “They are now imposing sanctions on Iran that really make them the true violators of human rights. They’re committing crimes against humanity on a daily basis. They should be quiet when it comes to countries like Iran,” Marandi emphasized.

While investigations are still ongoing, the Western mainstream media has centralized the world’s attention towards the death of Mahsa Amini on grounds of homicide by state police. They have compelled the masses to believe in a one-sided narrative and call for foreign regime change, standing on a position that at best, lacks clarity. 

As the world seeks to know the truth of how Amini actually died, speculations regarding the violence shown by the Iranian morality police are on the rise, and so are the protests fueled by Western media misinformation.