'You killed her for two strands of hair': Mahsa Amini's father stops mullah from performing her last rites

Tehran: Amid ongoing protests in Iran, Mahsa Amini’s father has refused to allow Islamic prayers over his daughter’s body.

“Your Islam denounced her, now you’ve come to pray over her? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You killed her for two strands of hair! … Take your Islam and go,” said Mahsa Amini’s father in a viral video.

Father of Mahsa Amini refuses to allow Islamic prayers over body of Mahsa. He's says to the mullah who's praying over her:
"Your Islam denounced her, now you've come to pray over her? Aren't you ashamed of urself? You killed her for 2 strands of hair! … Take your Islam and go." pic.twitter.com/Pzqn92Z2c2

— Emily Schrader – אמילי שריידר (@emilykschrader) September 20, 2022

Who is Mahsa Amini?

Over the past few days, protests have erupted across Iran after a 22-year-old woman died while being held by the morality police for violating the country’s strictly enforced Islamic dress code. Anger has seen women remove their mandatory headscarves, or hijabs, from covering their hair after the death of Mahsa Amini, who was picked up by morality police over her allegedly loose headscarf.

Several videos have emerged online showing women twirling them overhead, chanting. Others have burned them or cut off locks of their own hair in rage.

Amini’s death has angered many Iranians, particularly the young, who have come to see it as part of the Islamic Republic’s heavy-handed policing of dissent and the morality police’s increasingly violent treatment of young women.

Protests turn violent

According to reports, the protesters clashed with police at some of the places. Not just that, thick clouds of tear gas were seen in the capital of Tehran. Meanwhile, motorcycle-riding volunteers known as “Basij” in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard have chased and beaten demonstrators — as they have in other protests in recent years over water rights, the country’s cratering economy and other reasons that have been violently suppressed.

Yet some demonstrators still chant “death to the dictator”, targeting both Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s rule and Iran’s theocracy, despite the threat of arrest, imprisonment and even the possibility of a death sentence.

Why women are protesting in Iran?

On 13 September, Iran’s morality police arrested Mahsa Amini in Tehran, where she was visiting from her hometown in the country’s western Kurdish region. She collapsed at a police station and died three days later. She was detained by the police for wearing her hijab too loosely. Iran requires women to wear the headscarf in a way that completely covers their hair when in public.

Only Afghanistan under Taliban rule now actively enforces a similar law — even ultraconservative Saudi Arabia has dialled back its enforcement over recent years.

The police denied that Amini was mistreated and stated that she died of a heart attack. President Ebrahaim Raisi has promised an investigation. However, Amini’s family said she had no history of heart trouble and that they were prevented from seeing her body before she was buried. Protests erupted after her funeral in the Kurdish city of Saqez on Saturday, and quickly spread to other parts of the country, including Tehran.

(With inputs from agencies)

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