Iran: Mahsa Amini’s Grave Vandalized Once Again

Mahsa Amini, whose death in jail last September ignited anti-government riots across Iran, has had her gravesite vandalized.

Family photos taken at the Aichi cemetery in the western city of Saqqez showed that a pane of glass covering her tombstone and image had been shattered.

According to an Instagram post made by her brother, this is the second such incident in the past several months.

Ashkan Amini remarked, “Even the glass of your tombstone bothers them.”

He pledged, “We will fix it no matter how many times they break it. Let’s see who gets tired first.”

Saleh Nirbakht, a lawyer for the family, claimed in an audio message that vandals “known for such distasteful actions in the past” desecrated the burial on Sunday.

In addition, he said that Mahsa’s father had told him that officials had prevented the burial site’s protective canopy from being installed by warning a local welder that his shop would be closed if he completed the project.

The morality police in Iran’s capital city of Tehran imprisoned Mahsa on September 14 for allegedly breaching the country’s severe norms mandating women to cover their hair with a hijab, or headscarf, and she died three days later on September 16 in a Tehran hospital.

The 22-year-old Kurd’s family and friends said she was abused while in police custody, but authorities disputed these claims and instead blamed “sudden heart failure” for her death.

Women in their native Saqqez ripped off their headscarves in the initial protests after her funeral.

They quickly became one of the biggest threats to the Islamic Republic since the revolution in 1979, and their influence spanned the entire country.

Security forces have violently repressed the protests, portraying them as “riots” orchestrated from abroad, killing hundreds and arresting thousands more.

Since December, seven protesters have been hanged after what a UN expert called “arbitrary, summary, and sham trials marred by torture allegations.” According to reports, many more people have been given death sentences or charged with murder.

In the central Iranian city of Isfahan, authorities executed three men last week for “enmity against God” for their claimed roles in a shooting attack that killed three security personnel during protests in November.

Amnesty International heard from credible sources that Majid Kazemi, Saleh Mirhashemi, and Saeed Yaqoubi were abducted and tortured into making confessions that were used as evidence in their trials.

Human rights organizations are alarmed by the news that two Afghan men, Mohammad Ramez Rashidi and Naeim Hashem Ghotali, would be publicly executed soon. The news was announced on Monday by prosecutors in the southern province of Fars.

Their “corruption on Earth” and “armed rebellion against the state” convictions for their roles in the October 26 armed attack on the Shah Cheragh mausoleum in the city of Shiraz, which was claimed by the Islamic State (IS), were recently affirmed by the Supreme Court.

They were condemned to death “based on torture-tainted confessions, without due process and fair trial rights,” according to Iran Human Rights, a Norwegian organization.