Iranian journalist who broke news on Mahsa Amini pays heavy price

Niloofar Hamedi

Malaysiakini : Niloofar Hamedi, an Iranian journalist specialising in women's rights, got away with hard-hitting stories for years - until the day she took a photo of Mahsa Amini's parents hugging each other in a Tehran hospital where their daughter was lying in a coma.

The photo, which Hamedi posted on Twitter on Sept 16, was the first sign to the world that all was not well with 22-year-old Amini, who had been detained three days earlier by Iran's morality police for what they deemed inappropriate dress.

Amini's death later that day would unleash a wave of mass protests across Iran that were still persisting nearly three weeks later in different parts of the country, despite a government crackdown.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Iranian authorities to "immediately and unconditionally release ... all journalists arrested because of their coverage of Mahsa Amini’s death and the protests that have followed".

It said last month that at least 28 journalists had been detained by the security forces, including Hamedi.

Friends of Hamedi described her as a brave journalist who is passionate about women's issues and rights. Her investigative articles cover topics such as self-immolation among women suffering domestic abuse, and she interviewed the family of Sepideh Rashno, an Iranian writer and artist, who was arrested in July for defying the Islamic dress code.

"She always went beyond her limit to be the voice of voiceless women who were deprived of their rights, whether by their fathers, husbands or by social limitations," one friend of hers told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

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