Woman, 22, dies after being ‘beaten into a coma by Iran’s feared morality police’ for ‘wearing hijab wrongly’

 

The Tehran police chief said the death of a woman in custody was an "unfortunate" incident that he did not want to repeat.

Mahsa Amini, 22, fell into a coma last week, hours after morality police detained her for allegedly violating hijab rules.

Eyewitnesses accused the officers of beating her, but Police Brigadier General Hussein Rahimi denied such "cowardly accusations."

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Her death sparked protests in the capital and western Iran, where two people were reported killed in clashes with riot police on Monday.

Videos posted on social media appeared to show a crowd throwing stones in the town of Devandareh and then running after being shot.

Other footage showed protests in the capital,

Where women took off their headscarves and shouted "Death to the dictator" -

It is a hymn often used to refer to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Ms. Amini, a Kurdish woman from the western city of Saqqaz in the Kurdistan region, died in hospital on Friday after spending three days in a coma.

Morality police detained her outside a metro station in Tehran on Tuesday. They accused her of violating the law requiring women to cover their hair with a headscarf.

and their arms and legs in loose clothing.

According to eyewitnesses, she was beaten while inside a police car that took her to a detention center.

Police rejected the claim and said she had suffered "sudden heart failure" while waiting with other women at the center to receive an "education".

They released television footage showing a woman they identified as Ms. Amini talking to an undressed official.

Then she was seen holding her head in her hands and collapsing to the ground.

On Saturday, the interior minister said Ms. Amini "apparently had pre-existing physical problems".

However, her father told the pro-

On Sunday, correctional media said she was "fit and has no health problems". He also said that his daughter had bruises on her legs and that CCTV footage showed a "redacted version" of events.

On Monday, Brigadier General Rahimi expressed his sympathy to Ms Amini's family, but insisted she was not physically harmed.

"The evidence shows that there was no negligence or improper behavior on the part of the police," he told reporters.

The death sparked widespread criticism of the actions of the morality police, who recently launched a crackdown on "improper clothing".

Protests erupted in Sagiz after her funeral on Saturday,

Security forces reportedly opened fire on a crowd that was marching toward the local governor's office.

Clashes also took place between protesters and riot police in Sanandaj, the capital of Kurdistan, on Saturday and Sunday.