The Crime of the Morality Police in Raisi’s Government
The crime of the morality police in Raisi’s government has sparked such widespread and furious reactions to the painful death of Mahsa Zhina Amini that now a campaign has started on social media titled ‘End the Filth of the Morality Police.’ A doctor also, referring to the images released of Mahsa on the hospital bed, has dismissed any possibility of a stroke and considered the cause of death to be a brain injury.
What else needs to happen?
Social media pages are filled with images of a 22-year-old girl who was arrested by the morality police due to improper hijab while exiting the Haqqani metro station on Tuesday afternoon and fell into a coma two hours later in the Vozara detention center. After a series of incidents related to the hijab issue and increased crackdowns in recent months, many now ask what else needs to happen for you to realize the morality police should be dismantled.
What else needs to happen for you to understand that your approach to people’s dress is violent? Just recently, images of a mother who blocked the morality police’s vehicle and shouted ‘my daughter is sick, don’t take her’ went viral everywhere.
What happened to Mahsa Zhina could have happened then too, and the sick girl might not have withstood the psychological or even physical confrontations by the morality police officers. That incident and the images and videos of the violent encounters by the morality police, which are frequently published, have never influenced a change in the policy direction related to hijab and especially the morality police. The policy remains the same.
Morality police officers cannot tolerate any resistance, and any attempt to avoid cooperating with officers in boarding the morality police van is met with physical violence.
Brain Injury, Not Stroke
Kiarash Amini, Mahsa Zhina Amini’s brother, claims to have seen signs of beating on his sister’s body. The accounts of some other girls present at the arrest scene and even those with her in the morality police van and Vozara detention center also indicate physical confrontations by officers in the van with Mahsa and even pepper spraying the detainees and their families in Vozara.
Kiarash Amini, in multiple interviews with the media, has reported bruises on his sister’s legs and swelling on her face. He said every girl coming out of Vozara was saying they killed someone.
A doctor on Twitter, referring to the dried blood on Mahsa Amini’s ear and bruising under her eye in the image published of her on the hospital bed and under the device, wrote that bleeding from the ear and bruising under the eye are common signs of skull base fracture after accidents involving head collisions with a hard object or surface, which is diagnosable in forensic medicine.
He pointed out the police statement claiming she had a stroke, writing that bleeding from the ear is not seen in strokes. He mentioned that although what we have is merely a photo and a precise diagnosis requires access to the patient’s medical records, even with this photo, any doctor can differentiate a stroke from a brain injury.
Claim of Conservative Media: Congenital Condition
However, the Tehran police command denies any physical confrontation with Mahsa. The Hamshahri Online site, managed by Abdollah Ganji, former editor-in-chief of the Javan newspaper, claimed in a report that the cause of death was a heart and congenital condition in Mahsa Zhina and that no physical or violent confrontation occurred with her.
Hamshahri, referencing the Tehran police statement and quoting one of the police officials, wrote that what happened to Ms. Amini was not a confrontation or scuffle or insult, and what happened was a heart condition that occurred in the police station during a briefing session. She, alongside other women in the gathering, experienced a heart condition and was quickly referred to the infirmary.
This media outlet also quoted, without naming, one of the staff at Kasra Hospital, stating that the girl was brought to the emergency department in very bad condition. The doctor said it was a simultaneous heart and brain attack, and we learned the police brought her. The girl was young, and heart conditions in young people pose a greater risk compared to the elderly.
While there was no previous news about Mahsa’s cousin being present during her arrest, Hamshahri, for the first time, mentioned this presence and a statement from her, without any credible source. It is said that Mahsa’s cousin told the police officers that this girl from Sanandaj has a congenital heart condition and special circumstances and needs immediate help.
Even if this media’s narrative is true, the question remains for the audience: what fear took a young girl to the brink of simultaneous stroke? Some users have compared this incident to the case of Zahra Kazemi, where the cause of death was stated as a head collision with a hard object.
Silence of Conservatives, Sympathy of Reformists
Conservatives and supporters of mandatory hijab have adopted two approaches in this matter. Main accounts and real identities have generally remained silent, pretending not to see the issue, neither praising nor condemning the morality police.
Their media also emphasize the existence of a congenital disease and a stroke caused by fear as the cause of death, rejecting any physical violence. However, some anonymous accounts shamelessly defend the morality police’s actions, claiming that such incidents are an unintended result of not following the law and improper hijab.
Reformists, however, have risen in protest and criticism. For instance, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh wrote, ‘What kind of guidance leads to the death of a human being?’ Mahmoud Sadeghi, a former reformist parliament member who is also a lawyer, asked Twitter users to share any additional information and documentation about this incident so he could pursue it through legal channels, although the users’ responses mostly mocked him.
They say if previous complaints and pursuits led to results, this one will too, or are you going to complain to themselves about themselves? Some have also called reformists partners in crime and companions of the caravan, writing that you too must answer for all the injustices that have happened and continue to happen.
This article was published following the news that a girl from Sanandaj fell into a coma after being arrested by the morality police.
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