Mahsa Amini's death 'unlawful,' UN mission finds

STORY: The death of Mahsa Amini while in the custody of Iran’s morality police was unlawful, a U.N. fact-finding mission said on Monday.

It added the 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman’s death was caused by violence.

And said Iranian women still face systematic discrimination.

Here’s mission chair Sara Hossain, speaking in Geneva:

“Our findings showed, based on an examination of medical documents and also of pattern evidence of the treatment of women in these situations, that Jina Mahsa Amini's death was an unlawful death, and we believe that the state is responsible.”

Amini’s death in September 2022 - after allegedly flouting Iran’s Islamic dress code - unleashed months of protests and the biggest challenge to the Islamic Republic’s clerical leaders in decades.

HOSSAIN: “There have been serious human rights violations in connection with the protests. They include unlawful deaths, extrajudicial executions, unnecessary and disproportionate use of force, arbitrary arrest, torture and ill treatment, rape and sexual violence, enforced disappearance and gender persecution, intersecting with ethnic and religious grounds.” // “I mean, taking the notion of woman, life, freedom and distorting it and turning it on its head.”// “And as a consequence, we've made a finding also of crimes against humanity having occurred.”

The Secretary-General of Iran's High Council for Human Rights - Kazem Gharib Abadi - slammed the mission:

"...this so-called fact-finding mission has been marred by a glaring lack of independence and impartiality.”

Separately, a U.N. rapporteur also noted that jailed human rights defender Narges Mohammadi is suffering from severe health issues.

Hossain said the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was denied medical access because she did not have the mandatory hijab.

Women and girls in Iran continue to face daily discrimination, she added...

Noting that it was “hard to fathom” that women’s access to schools, hospitals, courts and jobs were subjected to what she described as an “arbitrary requirement of wearing the mandatory hijab.”