Mahsa Amini killing was the death of a 22-year-old Iranian woman in police custody on Sept. 16, 2022, in Tehran. Amini was arrested for violating the nation’s modesty code and died three days later. Her death led to protests in dozens of Iranian cities and eventually worldwide. 
Amini was a Kurdish woman from the city Saqez, also spelled Saqqez. On September 13, Amini was arrested in Tehran by officers of Iran’s morality police, who enforce the nation’s strict dress code. The police arrested Amini for incorrectly wearing her hijab, the traditional headscarf worn by Muslim women. Though many Muslim women choose to wear the hijab, wearing one is required by law in Iran.
Amini’s family reported that she was beaten upon her arrest, but the police have denied this allegation. She was taken to a detention center, but she collapsed there and was transferred to a hospital. She fell into a coma and died at the hospital. Authorities claimed Amini died of a heart attack.
The Mahsa Amini killing sparked widespread protests against repression by the Iranian government. The protests spread to schools and universities in Iran and to cities worldwide. Some women burned their headscarves in protest. Others cut their hair. According to human rights groups, thousands of protesters were arrested, and more than 300 people were killed. The authorities stated they would investigate the civilian deaths and claimed that the violence was caused by dissident groups. The government restricted access to the internet and social media as part of an attempt to end the protests.
The demonstrations persisted for months, with the focus growing from Amini to include others killed in the protests. Those killed included Iranian teenage girls whose stories became widely known through their participation in social media.
The protests presented one of the greatest challenges to Iranian authority since protests against presidential election results in 2009. In 1979, revolutionaries under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a Muslim religious leader, overthrew Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and took control of Iran. They changed Iran’s government from a constitutional monarchy to an Islamic republic. Their policies led to strict Islamic control over all areas of people’s lives.
