An Iranian Grammy Award winner said on Monday he was pardoned from a three-year sentence for a song that became an anthem to the 2022 protests that rocked the country following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.
On the streets of Iranian cities, it’s becoming more common to see a woman passing by without a mandatory headscarf, or hijab, as the second anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini and the mass protests it sparked approaches. There’s no government official or study acknowledging the phenomenon. But across social media, videos of people filming neighborhood streets or just talking about a normal day in their life, women and girls can be seen walking past with their long hair out over their shoulders, particularly after sunset. This defiance comes despite what United Nations investigators describe as “expanded repressive measures and policies” by Iran’s theocracy to punish them — though there’s been no incident like Amini’s death yet to galvanize demonstrators.
Sources close to the family of the late Iranian-Kurdish student Mahsa Amini have told Radio Farda on September 15 that security forces "have surrounded their home" in Saghez and prevented them from leaving the house as the second anniversary passed of her death in custody.
