"Say Her Name" demonstrations in global capitals marked the one-year anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini on Saturday by demanding changes in Iran's Islamic theocracy rule. In Iran, journalists and rights groups said, the father of the Kurdish-Iranian woman who died in police custody was himself taken into custody, CNN reports, as government security forces moved against protests in Kurdish areas. The events included remembrances of the 22-year-old woman who was accused by police of not wearing her hijab properly. Developments include:
International support: "Women! Life! Freedom!'' was chanted by crowds in central London, per the AP. "We're calling on everyone to remember those killed, but also continue the fight, because this fight has to go to the end," said Maryam Namazie, an Iranian human rights activist. "We have to have a better society as the result of this huge, Herculean fight," she added. Demonstrations also were held in Italy, Germany, France, and Australia. "What we want is to isolate this regime and in particular we want to push all the states not to have political and economic agreements with Iran," a protester in Rome said.
Iranian response: Semi-official media in Iran reported that "counter revolutionaries" and "terrorists" were arrested in various cities and that plots to create disturbances around illegal demonstrations were foiled, per Reuters. Amjad Amini, the father of Mahsa Amini, was held "for a few hours," an activist told CNN, and warned against commemorating his daughter's death. Activists said the family then canceled a planned gravesite service. A heavy government security presence was reported in downtown Tehran and in western Iran, the site of large protests a year ago by the Kurdish minority.
Sanctions: President Biden issued a statement Friday saying: "Mahsa's story did not end with her brutal death. She inspired a historic movement—Woman, Life, Freedom—that has impacted Iran and influenced people across the globe." The US and UK announced new sanctions against Iranian officials.
Remembrances: In Los Angeles, the City Council voted this week to name an intersection in memory of Amini, per Reuters. In Paris, Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced that a garden is the city now is named for the woman whom the mayor called an Iranian resistance hero, per the AP. France's capital "honors her memory and her battle, as well as those of women who fight for their freedom in Iran and elsewhere," Hidalgo said.
In-depth coverage: The Washington Post assesses the state of the uprising in Iran a year after it began here, and the New York Times talks to Mahsa Amini's family about the young woman whose life and death inspired the largest anti-government protests in Iran in more than a decade here. "If you met her once and heard her soft voice," her father said, "you could never forget her." (More Mahsa Amini stories.)
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