Iran ‘bears responsibility’ for Mahsa Amini’s ‘unlawful death’: UN report

Iran “bears responsibility” for Mahsa Amini’s “unlawful death” in 2022 that ignited nationwide protests, a U.N. report said Friday.

The pronouncement came from a report by the U.N. Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, which said that Tehran used “unnecessary and disproportionate use of lethal force” to repel protestors in the aftermath of the death. 

Amini was a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman who died in police custody in September 2022 after being detained by Iran’s morality police for alleged “improper” wear of her hijab. 

The U.N. report rejected Iran’s claims that she died from a medical condition from her childhood, saying that “based on the evidence, alleged complications arising from Ms. Amini’s surgery in childhood can be excluded as the immediate cause of her death.” 

It said the mission “established the existence of evidence of trauma to Ms. Amini’s body, inflicted while in the custody of the morality police,” adding that she was subject to “physical violence that led to her death.” 

“On that basis, the State bears responsibility for her unlawful death,” the report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council said. 

Iranian Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Nasser Kanaani rejected the claims in the report, saying its allegations are “based on false and biased information.” 

The report did not name anyone specifically for her death.  

The report also said that Tehran’s security forces carried out “unlawful” killings against protestors “in situations where there was no imminent threat of death or serious injury.” 

Some of the people who got detained faced threats of rape and sexual violence. 

“The security forces played on social and cultural stigma connected to sexual and gender-based violence to spread fear and humiliate and punish women, men and children,” the report said.