Tehran, Iran- Iran’s Forensic Organization said on Friday that the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who had a heart attack whilst in Police custody was a result of a previous brain tumour surgery.
According to the Forensic Organization, Mahsa’s death on the 16th of September was not a result of Police beatings but rather related to surgery for a brain tumour she had at the age of eight.
“Mahsa Amini’s death was not caused by blows to the head and vital organs and limbs of the body. She died due to multiple organ failure caused by cerebral hypoxia,” read part of the report released by the Forensic Organization.
Mahsa died three days after falling into a coma following her arrest in Tehran by the morality Police for allegedly breaching the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women.
Anger over her death has sparked the biggest wave of protests to rock Iran in almost three years.
Despite the security forces’ use of lethal force, the women-led protests have continued for 20 consecutive days and nights, but there have also been reported fatalities at the hands of the Police.
According to Amnesty International, Sarina Esmailzadeh, a 16-year-old who posted popular vlogs on YouTube, was killed when the security forces beat her with batons at a protest in Gohardasht in Alborz province on 23 September.
In private message groups, schoolgirls across Iran said they were planning protests at the weekend to show solidarity with Sarina and Nika Shakarami, the 17-year-old schoolgirl who went missing on 20 September and was also allegedly tortured and killed by Iran’s security forces.
However, despite claims that Nika was beaten and raped, and that her body was stolen from her family and buried without their consent, Iranian officials said Nika had killed herself by jumping from the roof of a building.
Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist and women’s rights activist exiled in the United States, has called Iran’s ongoing protest movement a revolution.
She said that the mandatory headscarf was the main pillar of Iran and that rejecting it was the Iranian equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall. She also rejected criticism that she and other women’s rights activists in Iran were propagating Islamophobia.
However, she said she was receiving death threats every day and living under the protection of the FBI but added that she was not scared of dying and expressed confidence that this protest movement was different from previous ones, concluding that it is the beginning of the end.
