Guidance Patrol or Death Carriage
From protest gatherings in front of Kasra Hospital to protest slogans in some other parts of Tehran, from shooting at participants in Mahsa Amini’s funeral procession and injuring a citizen from Saqqez to the arrest of some protesters, all in reaction to the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old girl who fell into a coma and died following her detention by the Guidance Patrol.
People are extremely angry and furious about this incident, anger that is in no way tolerated by Raisi’s government. Social media is filled with images and hashtags protesting Mahsa Amini’s death. Several rooms with the topic of this incident have been held in Clubhouse in recent days.
Mohsen Borhani, a faculty member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Tehran, who also spoke in one of the Clubhouse rooms the previous night, explicitly and with reference to various legal clauses, deemed the nature and operation of the Guidance Patrol illegal.
He, who is also a graduate of the seminary, criticized the police statement that said a woman was guided to one of the sections of Greater Tehran Police for justification and education and suddenly suffered a heart attack among other guided individuals. He tweeted, saying, ‘Legally, you have no right to justify and educate. Summoning parents, holding classes, and changing clothes are not within your jurisdiction.’
Principlists Came Out of Their Shell
Principlists and value-driven accounts, who had almost remained silent until the release of the CCTV footage from the Vozara detention center, considered it as proof after its release and claimed that no fault or sin was attributed to the Guidance Patrol officers, and those who targeted this institution with their attacks should apologize. For instance, Zohreh Elahian, a parliament member, claimed that Mahsa Amini had a history of heart disease and epilepsy since childhood.
This is while Mahsa’s uncle had denied any heart or underlying illness. Elahian further claimed that the forensic medicine announced that there were no signs of physical confrontation or assault.
This is while Mahsa’s brother reported bruising signs on his sister’s body. A doctor on Twitter wrote that to medically examine the cause of the tragedy that happened to Mahsa Amini, non-governmental doctors should be consulted. The joke about underlying illness and heart attack is a dirty joke.
They Documented the Dirty Joke
This dirty joke, however, seems to ultimately lead to the issuance of an official document stating the cause of Mahsa Amini’s death. The principlist news agency Fars, citing its informed source whose name was not disclosed, claimed that the initial forensic examination results regarding the cause of Mahsa Amini’s death indicate that she died due to a heart attack. The principlist Hamshahri media, which fell into the hands of principlists with the advent of Raisi’s government and where Abdollah Ganji, the chief editor of Javan newspaper, moved, repeated the same claim in another article.
This media wrote that an informed source said Mahsa Amini was transferred to the hospital by emergency services following a cardiac arrest, and after resuscitation, she experienced two more cardiac arrests within two hours, which were again resuscitated. In the brain CT scan, signs indicating hydrocephalus as a previous condition were reported.
She also underwent brain tumor surgery at the age of five and suffered from epilepsy and type 1 diabetes. She again experienced cardiac arrest on Friday afternoon, and ultimately, after 45 minutes of CPR, she died due to cardiopulmonary arrest.
Doubt in CCTV Footage
The reliance on CCTV footage by value-driven streams occurs while a Twitter user, after closely examining the released footage, found interesting information and points about the film. He noticed that the short film released by the police was edited. For example, when Mahsa enters the Vozara building, it is still daylight, but when she is inside the hall and talking to the female officer, it is dark. Also, in the next frame, the people inside the hall have changed and are not the same as those in the previous frame, meaning a lot of time has passed that is not seen in the film.
Another point many have mentioned is the absence or removal of a timer on the film, unlike all CCTV footage. The question that has arisen for many social media users is that we do not know what happened to Mahsa inside the Guidance Patrol van and before entering the Vozara detention center.
A Doctor’s Tweet Deleted
Mahdiar Saeedian, a doctor and editor of the medical knowledge magazine, who for the first time on Twitter, based on the published image of Mahsa in the hospital and the signs of blood pooling around the eyes and dried blood on the ear, declared that the discussion of a heart attack is definitely ruled out and she fell into a coma due to a head injury.
A few hours later, he deleted his tweet and wrote that a few minutes ago, a trusted professor and colleague who was aware of the details of Mahsa Amini’s medical file contacted him and explained the details to him. Although my goal from the beginning was a scientific and medical examination of this incident, with the atmosphere created and the misuse by some, I decided to delete the tweet.
I remain committed to my medical oath. Users under his tweet had implicitly written that they understood why and for what reason he was forced to delete his previous tweet and hoped that no problems would arise for him.
Why Does No One Believe
Why does no one give credibility to the police statement? Neither do they believe the reports from informed forensic sources quoted by principlist media, nor the insistence of the principlists on Mahsa’s brain and heart attack and the denial of any assault. The matter goes back to a precedent. In similar cases where it was said individuals died of natural causes in detention, it was revealed that this was not the case.
For example, in the case of the death of Ali Akbar Saidi Sirjani, it was said he died of natural causes. Years later, sources close to security circles at the time reported his torture and murder by security agents. In the case of the death of Saeed Emami, it was first said he committed suicide. This narrative was doubted in official publications inside Iran from the beginning. Some political and security officials of the Islamic Republic also reject the official narrative.
Two weeks after the death of Zahra Kazemi, the Director-General of Foreign Press and Media at the Ministry of Culture announced she had passed away due to a stroke. Two weeks later, in a special report by the presidential board, the cause of death was explicitly stated as being hit by a hard object on the head.
Official sources declared the cause of death of Zahra Bani Yaghoub, a young Iranian doctor who was detained by the Basij for promoting virtue, as suicide. The Bani Yaghoub family, considering the signs of beating, demanded independent investigations, but this request was met with opposition from judicial and security institutions.
Ebrahim Lotfollahi, a law student, was detained by Sanandaj Intelligence in mid-May. Eleven days later, the family was informed he had committed suicide, and the body was secretly buried without the presence of the family.
Cyber Police arrested Sattar Beheshti. Five days later, he was killed. Initially, it was said he died naturally and there were no signs of beating on his body, but ultimately, it was announced that the most probable cause of death was shock due to a blow or blows to sensitive parts of the body or severe psychological pressures. Besides these, there are other cases.
This article was published following the killing of Zhina Amini (Mahsa Amini) by the security police. Other reports and analyses on this matter have also been shared by Iran Gate.
- The Crime of the Guidance Patrol in Raisi’s Government
- The Murder of Mahsa Amini and Pressure from the Ministry of Intelligence on Forensic Medicine
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