A portrait of Mahsa Amini is held throughout a rally in Washington, on Oct. 1, 2022. Amini, who additionally glided by her Kurdish identify, Jina, died in police custody in Iran final yr, sparking worldwide protests in opposition to the nation’s conservative Islamic theocracy. She was awarded the European Union’s prime human rights prize on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023.

Cliff Owen/AP

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Cliff Owen/AP

A portrait of Mahsa Amini is held throughout a rally in Washington, on Oct. 1, 2022. Amini, who additionally glided by her Kurdish identify, Jina, died in police custody in Iran final yr, sparking worldwide protests in opposition to the nation’s conservative Islamic theocracy. She was awarded the European Union’s prime human rights prize on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023.

Cliff Owen/AP

The household of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year outdated girl whose September 2022 killing sparked countrywide protests in Iran, has been prohibited from touring to France to gather a human rights award in her identify.

According to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), Amini’s father, mom and brother have been prevented from boarding a flight at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport on Saturday. They have been knowledgeable they have been banned from touring and their passports have been then confiscated by safety forces.

In an interview with London-based Iran International, Mahsa’s father, Amjad Amini, mentioned that the household was not given a motive for the journey ban.

“I said ‘We have to know why, for what reason?’ But no one gave us answer,” Amini mentioned.

He added he’d knowledgeable the authorities of the household’s plan to journey a month prematurely however was not made conscious of a journey ban till they have been on the airport.

The household’s lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, was allowed to journey to Strasbourg, France, to gather the celebrated Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

Mahsa Amini, who additionally glided by her Kurdish identify, Jina, died whereas within the custody of Iran’s Morality Police. She was accused of violating Iran’s strict costume code for ladies, often known as the hijab. He loss of life was a catalyst for protests that swept the nation for months, and introduced Iranians from throughout socio-economic and spiritual backgrounds to the streets.

Silencing activists

The use of journey bans is widespread in Iran, Gissou Nia, an Iranian-American human rights lawyer and analyst on the Atlantic Council advised NPR. It’s typically used to stop activists from going abroad, the place they may get extra media consideration for his or her trigger.

“And there’s a heighted sensitivity that her family’s presence would shine a light on the situation in Iran,” mentioned Nia, including Iranian authorities clearly wished to keep away from the optics of a bereaved household talking on a global stage about how the brutality of Iran’s Morality Police brought about the loss of life of their liked one.

“They know what happened with Mahsa Amini is problematic for them, and they really want people to think that it wasn’t reflective of a systemic problem,” Nia mentioned.

“But this [travel ban] clearly shows that they know that this isn’t the case — they don’t want the family’s voices to be heard.”

Amini’s father, Amjad, was additionally detained on the anniversary of her loss of life when a large safety presence prevented giant protests and rallies.

“Woman, Life, Freedom,” the slogan coined in protests after Amini’s loss of life, wasn’t only a rallying cry in opposition to the enforcement of the hijab or for ladies’s rights. It got here to characterize a requirement for main reforms throughout Iran, which has been dominated by hardline clerics because the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Iranians face fixed crackdowns on free speech, press freedom, LGBTQ rights, manners of costume, pubic shows of affection, dancing or performing music in public, and extra.

Since these protests, based on HRANA, no less than 19,000 have been arrested within the nation. At least seven individuals have been executed for his or her ties to the protests, based on the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Several others, together with rappers Toomaj Salehi and Saman Yasin, stay imprisoned and face the opportunity of execution.

Despite the crackdowns, Mahsa Amini’s identify and the slogan born from her loss of life stay synonymous with the human rights motion in Iran.

At Sunday’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, in Oslo, Norway, the prize was awarded to a different Iranian girl, human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, who stays imprisoned in Iran.

Mohammadi’s daughter, Kiana Rahmani, began a speech on the ceremony honoring her mom’s work with “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi” — Farsi for “Woman, Life, Freedom.”