Iranian journalist who covered Mahsa Amini pays a heavy price

DUBAI, October 11 (Reuters) – Niloofar Hamedi, an Iranian journalist specializing in women’s rights, has juxtaposed with grim stories for years, until the day Mahsa Amini snapped a photo of her parents hugging each other at a hospital in Tehran where their daughter is sleeping. he was in a coma.

The photo that Hamdi shared on Twitter in September. December 16 was the first sign that all was not well with Amini, 22, who was detained three days ago for an outfit deemed inappropriate by the Iranian morality police.

Amini’s death later that day would spark a wave of mass protests across Iran. they still insisted About three weeks later, in different parts of the country, despite government pressure.

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The photo of Amini’s parents was also one of the last things Hamdi, who works for the pro-reform newspaper Sharq, would post before he was arrested and his Twitter account suspended a few days later.

“This morning, intelligence agents raided the home of my client, Niloofar Hamedi, arrested her, searched her home and confiscated her belongings,” said Mohammed Ali Kamfirouzi, Hamedi’s lawyer. 22.

Hamdi wrote that he was not charged and was kept in solitary confinement in Iran’s Evin prison.

Faced with one of the most daring challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution, authorities used force to suppress the largest public demonstration of opposition in recent years.

At least 185 people, including 19 minors, were killed, hundreds injured, and thousands arrested by security forces, according to rights groups. The Iranian government said more than 20 security forces were killed and would investigate civilian deaths.

PASSIONATE FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) urged Iranian authorities to “immediately and unconditionally release all journalists arrested for covering Mahsa Amini’s death and the ensuing protests”.

He said that last month, at least 28 journalists, including Hamdi, were detained by security forces.

Hamedi’s friends described her as a courageous journalist passionate about women’s issues and rights. His research papers cover topics such as self-immolation among women who experience domestic violence, and he interviewed the family of Iranian writer and artist Sepideh Rashno, who was arrested in July for breaking the Islamic dress code.

“He always overstepped his bounds to be the voice of women without a voice who are disenfranchised by their fathers, husbands or social restrictions,” a friend told Reuters on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Iranian authorities have blamed a number of enemies for the violence, including armed Iranian Kurdish dissidents, as the Revolutionary Guards attacked their bases in neighboring Iraq several times during the recent unrest.

“We hope Hamedi returns to the office. Put her bag on the table, … write about the deprived and unidentified women who are victims of prejudice in Iran,” editor Shahrzad Hemmati said on October 11.

(This story has been edited to add dropped words at paragraphs 4 and 13.