Protests have been shaking Iranian cities for nearly a dozen nights, sparked by the death of a young women's rights activist in the custody of the country's morality police. The 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, was arrested for wearing her headscarf too loosely while on a family visit to Tehran.
Officially, Amini died of heart failure. But her family (and many, many others) believe she died from injuries sustained as police beat her during and after her arrest on September 13. "She was tortured, according to eyewitnesses," said Amini's cousin, Erfan Mortezaei. "She was tortured in the van after her arrest, then tortured at the police station for half an hour, then hit on her head and she collapsed."
