Iranian girls detained for doing a TikTok dance in public

In September 2022, the dying of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish girl who died in police custody after being arrested by morality police for sporting the hijab “inappropriately”, sparked widespread protest throughout Iran. Authorities claimed Amini died of a coronary heart assault whereas in custody, whereas her household mentioned she was beaten. Protests sparked by his dying shortly became broader discontent with the regime.

Over the following six months, Iranian safety forces routinely used drastic techniques to attempt to quell protests, going as far as to arrest youngsters. In a report launched Thursday, Amnesty International found that youngsters arrested throughout and after protests had been subjected to electrical shocks to their our bodies, had their heads underwater, had been sexually assaulted and had been threatened with rape. Many youngsters have been solely launched after signing letters of “repentance” and promising to not take part in additional protests, in response to the human rights group. The Iranian authorities didn’t reply to the report and didn’t instantly reply to BuzzFeed Information’ request for remark.

A mysterious wave of suspected poisonings throughout the nation additionally landed greater than 1,000 schoolgirls in hospital. Iranian Inside Minister Ahmad Vahidi, whose division leads investigations into poisoning stories, mentioned in early March that 90% of hospitalizations got here from “the stress and worries caused by the news.” Many Iranians dismissed that rationalization, calling Vahidi’s declare “ridiculous” and criticizing the regime for failing to behave on the stories regardless of widespread surveillance of residents.

In a press launch on Thursday, the UN called the “deliberate” poisonings and condemned the federal government for failing to guard the women and promptly examine the circumstances.

“There’s a stark distinction between the fast deployment of power to arrest and imprison peaceable protesters and a months-long failure to determine and apprehend the perpetrators of large-scale, coordinated assaults on younger ladies in Iran,” they mentioned. UN consultants.