On 16 September 2022, a 22-year-old Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini, also known as Jina Amini, died in a hospital in Tehran, Iran, under suspicious circumstances. The Guidance Patrol, the religious morality police of Iran’s government, arrested Amini for not wearing the hijab in accordance with government standards. The Law Enforcement Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran stated that before transferring her to the hospital, she had a heart attack at a police station, collapsed, and fell into a coma. However, eyewitnesses, including women who were detained with Amini, reportedly said she was severely beaten, and that she died as a result of police brutality, which was denied by Iranian authorities. These assertions, in addition to leaked medical scans, led independent observers to believe Amini had had a cerebral haemorrhage.

Amini’s death resulted in a series of protests, described by CNN as more widespread than the protests in 2009, 2017, and 2019, and by The New York Times as the largest Iranian protests since at least 2009. Some female demonstrators removed their hijab or publicly cut their hair as acts of protest. By 21th February, at least 530 people including 71 children have been killed by security forces confronting protests across the country; Amnesty International reported that Iranian security forces were, in some cases, firing into groups with live ammunition, and in other cases were killing protesters by beating them with batons…