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Entrance to Evin Prison
Photo: Majid Asgaripour / WANA / REUTERS
After the death of a young woman in Iran, the judiciary rejected reports that she had recently been interrogated by the secret service. The background in the case of young Sara Tabrisi is the subject of the investigation, the Misan justice portal reported on Friday evening. According to the judiciary, the father found his daughter lifeless in the apartment around a week ago. The case occurred in Schahriar, about 30 kilometers near the capital Tehran.
Activists had made serious accusations against the judiciary and reported that Tabrisi had been put under pressure in recent months. The 20-year-old was summoned to an intelligence interrogation just one day before her death, the human rights organization Hawar reported on X, formerly Twitter. In November, Tabrisi was prevented from leaving the country, imprisoned and later given a suspended sentence.
Tabrisi was held in Isolation Ward 209 of the notorious Evin Prison for 10 days before being released on bail, according to Hawar. At the beginning of the year she was arrested again and temporarily taken to the women's wing of the prison. Even after that, she continued to be put under pressure. According to Hawar, secret service agents called her regularly and threatened her to cooperate with the regime. A day before her death, Tabrisi was summoned again for questioning at the Ministry of Intelligence.
Iran's judiciary confirmed an arrest at the airport, but dated it to early January. Tabrisi was imprisoned at the time for forged identification documents, the Misan report said.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, who was imprisoned in Iran, blamed the Iranian government for the young woman's death. »She was with us for a week. With the worries that we are all familiar with. She told us about the nights in solitary confinement and the horror that the interrogation officers' threats would be carried out," said Mohammadi's Instagram account, which relatives run abroad.
The representations cannot be independently verified and the background remains unclear. The case caused another outcry online. Mistrust in the authorities has repeatedly led to speculation and social tensions in the past. After the women-led protests in 2022, the gap between the population and the state has widened once again.
In autumn 2022, the death of the young Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini triggered the most serious protests in the history of the Islamic Republic. For months, young people in particular took to the streets to demonstrate against the Islamic system of rule. Amini is said to have worn her headscarf incorrectly, was arrested by the notorious moral guards and died shortly afterwards. A commission of experts commissioned by the UN concluded that physical violence after the arrest led to her death.
dab/dpa