On Sept. 16, Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman of Kurdish ethnicity, was arrested by Iran's "morality police" for violating the law that requires women to wear a headscarf (hijab). While Amini was in police custody, shocking images surfaced of her in a hospital bed, apparently bruised and battered. Hours later, she was dead.
Protests quickly erupted across 80 cities in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Demonstrators gathered to cut off their hair, burn their hijabs and seize control of their streets, if only temporarily. They chanted, "زن، زندگی، آزادی" — "Women, life, freedom."
