Iranian forces kill at least three, arrest hundreds as protests over Mahsa Amini's death grow: Kurdish NGO

At least three Kurdish protestors were killed by Iranian security forces as protests spread across Kurdish cities within the Iranian Kurdistan region against the death of Mahsa Amini, with also hundreds injured and arrested, Kurdish human rights activists said to The New Arab.

"During Monday's protests, at least three Kurdish protestors were killed by live fire from Iranian security forces, 221 others were injured - including 43 women and 24 teenagers - and 250 Kurdish activists were kidnapped," the head of the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Arsalan Yarahmedi, told The New Arab.

"Muhsin Muhammadi from Divandare, Raza Lutfi from Dewlan, and Faraidun Mahmoudi from Saqqez have been killed by gunfire from the Iranian security forces. Seven of the injured - including a 10-year-old girl from Bokan - are in critical conditions," Yarahmedi noted. 

Mahsa (Zhina) Amini,22, a Kurdish woman from Saqqez, was on a visit with her brother to the Iranian capital city of Tehran when she was detained last Tuesday by Iran's morality police allegedly for not wearing "a proper hijab".

She died on Friday after being hospitalised due to allegedly being beaten by the police unit responsible for enforcing Iran's strict dress code for women, which includes the compulsory wearing of the headscarf in public.

تصویری از یک دختر ۱۰ ساله اهل بوکان که در جریان اعتراضات روز دوشنبه ۲۸ شهریور ۱۴۰۱ با شلیک مستقیم نیروهای حکومتی مجروح شد.#اعتصاب_کردستان#مهسا_امینی pic.twitter.com/4QRJJ1YZES

— Hengaw Human Rights Organization (@HengawO) September 20, 2022

Following her death, protests swept Tehran and most major Iranian cities, including the dominant Kurdish-populated cities in western Iran known as Rojhalat.

Yarahmedi also noted that a strike has been launched in 24 Kurdish cities, with shops and markets shutting down in protest of Amini's death, while in 13 other Kurdish cities and towns across Iranian Kurdistan demonstrations and rallies were being organised. 

"People in the cities of Divandereh, Saqqiz, Baneh, Mariwan, Sina, Kamyaran, Dewlan, Tekab, Sardasht, and Bokan took to the streets peacefully, but the protests turned violent when Iranian forces opened fire on them," Yarahmedi added.  

Iranian authorities said they launched an investigation into the death of Amini, but a medical examiner said on Saturday results of forensic tests may take three weeks. Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli told state TV that no report indicated she was beaten.

"It is not clear how she was beaten. The women who were in the ambulance said that she was hit on the head," Amjad Amini, Mahsa's father, told Rudaw on Monday. 

Human Rights Watch called on the Iranian authorities to conduct "a transparent investigation, holding those responsible for Mahsa's death appropriately accountable and providing reparations to her family is absolutely necessary."