While President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris have berated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel fights against the terrorist proxies of Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah, video has surfaced of Iran’s “morality police” reportedly violently seizing two teenage girls whose hair was uncovered and dragging them off into a waiting van.
The incident occurred in the summer of 2024 in Iran’s capital, Tehran.
A video released by @ensafnews shows Iran's "morality" police violently arresting and beating two teenage girls on June 21 in Tehran over hijab. The mother of one of the girls says her face and neck were bruised, her lips swollen, and her clothes torn.pic.twitter.com/E00SvTuUYG
— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) August 6, 2024
Activists online speculated that the girls were taken because their hair was uncovered.
“I am furious, outrage and heartbroken to see how 14-year-old teenagers being savagely attacked by the morality police for not covering their hair. This video, released by a reformist website, coincides with the execution of a protester Reza Rasaei who stood against the murder of another girl Mahsa Amini by the morality police,” Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad tweeted.
Horror in Tehran: I am furious, outrage and heartbroken to see how 14-year-old teenagers being savagely attacked by the morality police for not covering their hair. This video, released by a reformist website, coincides with the execution of a protester Reza Rasaei who stood… pic.twitter.com/RCqbIs5Bmk
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) August 7, 2024
Speaking of Rasaei, Alinejad wrote, “It feels like a scene from a terrifying movie, yet this is the harsh reality for Iranians living under a brutal regime. The government didn’t even allow them to hold him one last time. Instead, they were told, ‘You cannot bury the body in any cemetery. Take it to a remote desert.’ All I hear from those who have lost their loved ones is a chorus of defiance, shouting that they will never give up their fight until the day they rid themselves of the Islamic Republic.”
A sorrowful day waking up early this morning to learn that the regime hanged her 34-year-old brother, Reza Rasaei, for the crime of protesting the murder of another young girl #MahsaAmini who lost her life at the hands of the morality police for not covering her hair. It feels… pic.twitter.com/B2Ah6cPLCy
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) August 6, 2024
Protests erupted in Iran in 2022 after Amini’s death. Amini, 22, was visiting Tehran in September 2022. She was forced into a van run by the Gasht-e Ershad, which enforces the Iranian regime’s dress code. Then, she was taken to the “Vozara detention center.” She died in mysterious circumstances, prompting opponents of the regime, who say police often treat violators of the dress code brutally, to contend that the young girl was murdered, as TIME reported.
The hospital where Amini was taken announced that she was declared brain-dead when she arrived at the hospital, while the Iranian government insisted that she suffered from a pre-existing condition. But Amini’s family countered the government, asserting that she did not suffer from a pre-existing condition.
In early October 2022, various reports indicated that scores of Iranians had been killed because of the despotic theocratic Iranian regime’s crackdown on protests surging around their country.
During the protests mounted after Amini’s death, the Iran Human Rights Group reported 92 people had been killed, while Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency admitted that “around 60” people had died. Amnesty International stated it had confirmed 53 deaths, including two women and at least five children.
