Deal with Sweden, Finland over NATO membership sees Turkey's Erdogan hailed at home

June 29, 2022

Andrew Wilks

ISTANBUL — The deal allowing Sweden and Finland to progress with their NATO bids was portrayed as an overwhelming victory for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday, with the Nordic states reported to have agreed to Ankara's demands. 

“Turkey got what it wanted,” Erdogan’s office said in a statement following an agreement at the NATO summit in Madrid.

The sentiment within Turkey’s pro-government media was summed up by a photograph carried by the state-run Anadolu news agency. A grinning Erdogan was shown standing at the NATO podium, flanked by the leaders of Sweden and Finland and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg who seemed to be gazing in gratitude at the president.

Tuesday’s breakthrough came after weeks when Ankara appeared ready to scupper the alliance’s northern expansion over calls for Stockholm and Helsinki to tighten their approach to terrorism and drop restrictions on arms sales to Turkey.

Turkey said that Sweden in particular had been harboring militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been waging war against Turkey since 1984, leading to tens of thousands of deaths.

It also claims members of what it considers terrorist groups, such as those said to be behind a 2016 coup attempt and the PKK’s Syrian branch, are sheltering in Sweden.

The statement from the Turkish presidency said the agreement would entail “full cooperation with Turkey in the fight against the PKK and its affiliates.”

Elsewhere in the Turkish media, which is largely controlled by Erdogan’s supporters in the business world, the daily Yeni Akit heralded the deal. “Two strongholds of terrorism fall in Europe,” it said.

The Sabah newspaper reported on Erdogan’s “Madrid victory” and praised his “decisiveness and leadership vision” to successfully have Ankara’s demands accepted. Another government-friendly newspaper, Aksam, said the deal incorporated guarantees for Turkey in monitoring the activities of PKK supporters in Sweden and Finland.

The agreement — signed by the foreign ministers of Turkey, Sweden and Finland — also said the Nordic states would “expeditiously and thoroughly” address Turkish extradition requests in accordance with the European Convention on Extradition.

Turkey’s Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Wednesday that Turkey would renew requests to Sweden and Finland for the extradition of 33 individuals it considers terrorists.

“The dossiers of six PKK members, six FETO members await in Finland, while those of 10 FETO members and 11 PKK members await in Sweden. We will write about their extradition again after the agreement and remind them,” Bozdag said.

FETO, or the Fethullah Terrorist Organization, is the label Ankara applies to the religious sect it holds responsible for the 2016 failed coup. The movement’s leader, US-based Fethullah Gulen, has denied involvement in the bid to overthrow Erdogan.

In parliament, Erdogan’s ultranationalist partner Devlet Bahceli, who last month said NATO expansion would “drag the world into a new fire,” welcomed the Madrid deal as a “national achievement.”

Addressing his Nationalist Action Party (MHP) lawmakers, Bahceli added, “On this occasion, I wholeheartedly congratulate Mr. President, our minister of foreign affairs and all our diplomats, and thank each of them individually.”

Opposition politicians were more critical of the deal, questioning whether promises made by the Nordic countries could be enforced after they enter NATO and Turkey no longer has any leverage.

“This signature that the government gave without any concrete developments from Sweden and Finland is, unfortunately, a compromise that is not in line with the interests of our country,” said Meral Aksener, head of the nationalist Iyi Party.

Addressing his words to Erdogan, Iyi Party lawmaker Muhammet Naci Cinisli added, “Please do not demean the value of Turkey’s word every time. It’s a disgrace, it’s a sin, it’s a pity.”

Engin Altay, deputy chairman of the parliamentary group of the Republican People’s Party, questioned whether any further agreement was made behind the scenes. “What promises were made? What commitments were made? We do not know,” he said.

Many commentators viewed the meeting between Erdogan and US President Joe Biden in Madrid on Wednesday as part of the deal to approve Sweden and Finland’s NATO application, although the White House denied any link.

Erdogan is expected to press Biden to sell Turkey 40 new F-16 fighters and nearly 80 modernization kits for its existing F-16 fleet, a request Ankara initially made in October.

“Erdogan, by this decision, again showed his pragmatism and ability always to do 180s when required,” said Timothy Ash, an economist at BlueBay Asset Management who focuses on Turkey.

“He negotiated hard, right up to the last minute, and got real wins with assurances from the [Swedes and Finns] on the Kurdish issue and from the US on F16s. … He comes back in from the cold with the West.”

Source: al-Monitor.

Link: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/06/deal-sweden-finland-over-nato-membership-sees-turkeys-erdogan-hailed-home.

Sweden, Finland on Course to Join NATO as Russia, China Focus Allies

Wednesday, 29 June, 2022

Sweden and Finland on Wednesday looked set for fast-track membership of NATO after Turkey lifted a veto on them joining, while concerns about Russia and China are pushing the US-led alliance to approve a broader strategy for the next decade.

After talks in Madrid, Turkish President Tayyip Edrogan on Tuesday agreed with his Finnish and Swedish counterparts a series of security measures to allow the two Nordic countries to progress in their bid to join the US-led alliance.

"We will make a decision at the summit to invite Sweden and Finland to become members," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said of the two countries, who overturned decades of neutrality to apply to join the alliance in mid-May.

While the agreement removed a major hurdle to the Nordic nations joining, their bid must now be approved by the member states' parliaments, a process that could take some time.

Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine has given a new impetus to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization after failures in Afghanistan and internal discord during the era of former US President Donald Trump.

"We are very happy that they are to join NATO and we hope that the final decision will be today," Polish President Andrzej Duda said as he arrived at the first formal day of the summit, which began on Tuesday evening with a dinner at Spain's royal palace and is set to agree on NATO's first new strategic concept - its master planning document - in a decade.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, the host of the summit, told Cadena Ser radio on Wednesday that Russia will be identified as NATO's "main threat" in the strategic concept. Russia was previously classed as a strategic partner of NATO.

The planning document will also cite China as a challenge for the first time, setting the stage for the 30 allies to plan to handle Beijing's transformation from a benign trading partner to a fast-growing competitor from the Arctic to cyberspace.

'More NATO'

Unlike Russia, whose war in Ukraine has raised serious concerns in the Baltics of an attack on NATO territory, China is not an adversary, NATO leaders said. But Stoltenberg has repeatedly called on Beijing to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow says is a "special operation".

The Western alliance is also set to agree that big allies such as the United States, Germany, Britain and Canada will pre-assign troops, weapons and equipment to the Baltics and intensify training exercises. NATO is also aiming to have as many as 300,000 troops ready for deployment in case of conflict, part of an enlarged NATO response force.

For NATO, Russia is achieving the opposite of what its President Vladimir Putin sought when he launched his war in Ukraine in part to counter the expansion of the NATO alliance, Western leaders say.

Both Finland, which has a 1,300 km (810 mile) border with Russia, and Sweden, home of the founder of the Nobel Peace Prize, are now set to bring well-trained militaries into the alliance, aimed at giving NATO superiority in the Baltic Sea.

"One of the most important messages from President Putin ... was that he was against any further NATO enlargement," Stoltenberg said on Tuesday evening. "He wanted less NATO. Now President Putin is getting more NATO on his borders."

Source: Asharq al-Awsat.

Link: https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3730526/sweden-finland-course-join-nato-russia-china-focus-allies.

Turkey lifts objection to Sweden, Finland joining NATO at last minute

June 28, 2022

Nazlan Ertan

After a day of phone diplomacy, conflicting statements, and last-minute political posturing, Turkey has given the nod to NATO hopefuls Sweden and Finland after signing a trilateral memorandum that addressed Ankara’s security concerns.

The memorandum, signed by the three countries' foreign ministers,  comes after an eleventh-hour meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Swedish Premier Magdalena Andersson, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg before the official dinner marking the beginning of Madrid Summit of June 28-30.  

“I am pleased to announce that we have an agreement that paves the way for the accession of Sweden and Finland,” Stoltenberg told a press conference, explaining that Finland and Sweden have agreed to Turkey’s demands for amending their laws further to crack down on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), work with Turkey on extraditions of people on Turkey’s wanted list and lift military embargoes on Ankara.

The Turkish reversal came after a phone conversation between Erdogan and US President Joe Biden on Tuesday morning. A US administration official told journalists in Madrid that the phone call came after Helsinki and Stockholm asked Biden to reach out to Erdogan.

The trilateral memorandum, a three-page, ten-point document, said that the two Nordic countries would extend their full support to Turkey on threats against national security. It explicitly stated that the two countries would not support YPG/PYD (Syrian Kurdish groups which Turkey considers offshoots of the PKK in Syria) or FETO, the organization headed by US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen which Ankara says directed the unsuccessful putsch in 2016.

Turkey’s green light to Finland and Sweden, two countries that have shed their long-standing neutrality, clears the way for NATO’s 30 members from Europe and North America to sign the accession protocol. Stoltenberg said that the accession protocol still needed to be ratified by members’ parliaments, but he was confident this would not be a problem.

Shortly before the signing of the memorandum, Turkey announced that bilateral talks between Turkey and Sweden would take place in Ankara tomorrow at the deputy foreign minister level. “During the consultations, bilateral relations will be discussed extensively along with Turkey-EU relations, and current regional and international issues,” a statement from the Foreign Ministry said. 

There had been conflicting messages before the mini-summit. Both Finland and Sweden expressed optimism following their top bureaucrats' talks in Brussels a day ago. "The general view is that the discussions went somewhat better, which should mean that understanding has somewhat increased on both sides," Niinisto told reporters in Helsinki before heading to Madrid. 

Niinisto’s optimism marked a sharp contrast from Erdogan, who remained inflexible as he boarded his plane Tuesday morning. “We emphasize our expectation since the beginning that the [Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK], which threaten Turkey’s national interests, and all offshoots in Syria, especially the PYD and YPG, should be prevented from acting freely in these countries,” he told journalists. “We do not want empty words, we want results. We are sick of passing the ball around in mid-field.”

But, as of Tuesday morning, the main prize for Erdogan was the phone conversation — and the promise of a meeting in Madrid — with US President Joe Biden, who had pointedly kept a chilly relationship with his Turkish counterpart. Both diplomats and journalists felt that the intervention from the United States, whom Erdogan called the “Number One country of NATO” could help break the impasse. 

“President Biden noted he looks forward to seeing President Erdogan at the NATO Summit in Madrid where leaders will discuss the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for Transatlantic security and other threats to the Alliance such as terrorism, as well as take historic decisions to strengthen the Alliance’s collective defense and security,” a statement from the White House said.

"We spoke with Mr.Biden this morning, and he expressed his desire to get together tonight or tomorrow,” Erdogan told journalists as he left Turkey for the NATO summit Tuesday morning. “We said it is possible.” Erdogan is expected to meet Biden tomorrow morning, according to Turkish officials.

Turkey’s looming veto to Nordic enlargement came as the military alliance is set to adopt its 2022 Strategic Concept, which will guide it through the 2030s. The concept will set out NATO's joint positions, including on Russia and emerging challenges, and for the first time, it will also address China. 

But for Erdogan, the Madrid Summit and the Nordic enlargement were also the moment to air his country’s grievances on the PKK and the US-backed armed Kurdish groups in Syria. Despite early claims that he would be persuaded well ahead of the summit, the Turkish president has been intransigent until the last. 

“Erdogan’s intransigence is widely attributed to domestic political considerations, including a desperate need to divert attention from the dire state of Turkey’s economy as well as boosting his sagging poll ratings by playing to rampant nationalist and anti-Western feelings," Kemal Kirisci, a non-resident senior fellow of Brookings Institute, wrote a day before the summit. Another factor, he said, is Erdoğan’s own discomfort with Turkey’s Western orientation, symbolized by its membership in NATO as well as in the Council of Europe. 

Erdogan — and his foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu — mostly targeted Sweden, which has a sizable Kurdish community, few but vocal PKK members and sympathizers, and liberal laws on freedom of association and fund-raising. But Erdogan repeated Tuesday that Germany, the Netherlands and Greece had also been harboring terrorist groups against Turkey. He also criticized the United States for sending arms to Syrian groups and for opening nine military bases in Greece.

“The United States is the number one country of NATO. Truckloads of weapons came from the US. This morning, we had a talk with [Biden] but I will reiterate these to him during our meeting this evening or tomorrow. How come all these weapons are dispatched to the PKK/YPG while we are two partner countries within NATO that stand shoulder to shoulder,” he said. “Against whom are these weapons used? They are used against Turkey.”

Given Erdogan’s stance, the diplomatic efforts of Stoltenberg and other NATO allies such as the United Kingdom have been two-pronged. One pillar was trying to assure Turkey that Finland and Sweden have “sufficiently” met Turkey’s long list of demands.

The other, which is more complex, was to persuade Turkey that not just Finland and Sweden, but all NATO allies recognize the legitimacy of Turkey’s security concerns. As a concession, a special session on the security of the southern flank was added to the program of the Madrid Summit. The Turkish side is expected to bring documents, information, and images to this session. Erdogan said that he would express Turkey’s concerns and individual acts by allies, including by France and the United States, “one by one.” 

On Monday, Stoltenberg and Andersson spoke at NATO headquarters to laud what Stoltenberg called a “paradigm shift” in Sweden’s attitude toward terrorism.

“You have already amended Swedish law. You have launched new police investigations against the PKK, and you are currently looking at Turkish extradition requests. These concrete steps represent a paradigm shift in Sweden’s approach to terrorism in a more dangerous and unpredictable world,” Stoltenberg told journalists with Andersson on his side.

Andersson maintained that Sweden has strengthened the laws against funding terrorism in the last few years. “Sweden’s terrorist legislation is undergoing its biggest overhaul in 30 years. A new and tougher Terrorist Offences Act enters into force on 1 July, with a broadened scope and higher scales of penalties. Constitutional amendments are being prepared which would pave the way for criminalization of participation in terrorist organizations,” she said.

Andersson also stated that her country’s stance regarding the PKK is crystal clear. “It is listed as a terror organization in the EU and is regarded as one by Sweden,” she said.

The Swedish prime minister sought to alleviate Turkey’s concerns about defense embargos and extraditions. “Our NATO membership will have implications with respect to export control of defense material to all NATO Allies. Alliance solidarity will be reflected within our national regulatory framework,” she said. 

Extraditions, she said, “are handled swiftly and carefully by our legal system in accordance with European Convention on Extradition. … The relevant authorities work intensively in order to expel persons who could be a security threat.”

The local media reported a day ago that Turkey has asked for the extradition of 45 people from Sweden and Finland. These are not only members of the PKK but also members of FETO, and from two left-wing groups, TIKKO and DHKP-C.

Source: al-Monitor.

Link: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/06/turkey-lifts-objection-sweden-finland-joining-nato-last-minute.

NATO to Massively Increase High-readiness Forces to 300,000

Monday, 27 June, 2022

NATO will increase the number of its forces at high readiness massively to over 300,000, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday.

"We will transform the NATO response force and increase the number of our high readiness forces to well over 300,000," he told reporters ahead of a NATO summit in Madrid later this week in Madrid.

NATO's quick reaction force, the NATO response force, so far has some 40,000 troops.

At the Madrid summit, NATO will also change its language on Russia that in the alliance's last strategy from 2010 was still described as a strategic partner.

"That will not be the case in the strategic concept that we will agree in Madrid," Reuters quoted Stoltenberg as saying.

"I expect that allies will state clearly that Russia poses a direct threat to our security, to our values, to the rules-based international order."

Source: Asharq al-Awsat.

Link: https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3726906/nato-massively-increase-high-readiness-forces-300000.

Finland, Sweden to Send Teams to Turkey to Discuss NATO Bids, Haavisto Says

Tuesday, 24 May, 2022

Finland and Sweden will send delegations to Ankara on Wednesday to try to resolve Turkish opposition to their applications for membership of the NATO military alliance, Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said on Tuesday.

"We are sending our delegations to visit Ankara, actually both Sweden and Finland. This will happen tomorrow, so the dialogue is continuing," Haavisto said during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who has objected to Sweden and Finland joining NATO, held phone calls with the leaders of the two Nordic countries on Saturday and discussed his concerns.

Turkey says Sweden and Finland harbor people linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and followers of Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating a 2016 coup attempt.

"We understand that Turkey has some of their own security concerns vis a vis terrorism ... We think that these issues can be settled. There might be also some issues that are not linked directly to Finland and Sweden but more to other NATO members," Haavisto said.

Erdogan told Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson on Saturday that Ankara expected concrete steps to address its concerns, according to the Turkish presidency. He also said an arms exports embargo imposed on Turkey after its Syria incursion in 2019 should be lifted, it added.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said on Saturday he had held "open and direct" talks on the phone with Erdogan.

"I stated that as NATO allies Finland and Turkey will commit to each other's security and our relationship will thus grow stronger," Niinisto tweeted after the call.

Erdogan spoke also with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg on Saturday, telling him that Ankara would not look positively on Sweden and Finland's NATO bids unless they clearly show cooperation in the fight against terrorism and other issues.

Source: Asharq al-Awsat.

Link: https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3663201/finland-sweden-send-teams-turkey-discuss-nato-bids-haavisto-says.

Activists: Iranian Forces Unleash Heavy Fire on Protesters

Monday, 21 November, 2022

Iranian security forces used heavy gunfire against protesters in a Kurdish town in the country's west on Monday, killing at least five during an anti-government protest that erupted at the funeral of two people killed the day before, activists said.

Videos circulating online show dozens of protesters taking shelter in alleyways as heavy gunfire echoes through the streets. Some show individuals lying motionless and bloodied in the streets, while others show residents gathering at a local hospital to donate blood.

Iran has been convulsed by anti-government protests since the Sept. 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman who died in the custody of the country's morality police in the capital, Tehran. The protests, which were initially concentrated in the western, Kurdish region of Iran where Amini was from, have spread across the country and escalated into calls for the overthrow of Iran's ruling clerics.

Hengaw, a Kurdish human rights group, said Iranian security forces unleashed heavy gunfire on protesters in the town of Javanrud, where a funeral was held for two protesters killed the day before. It cited witnesses as saying that Iranian forces used heavy machine guns.

Hengaw said seven people were killed on Monday, while another group, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, put the toll at five. The latter group said many of the wounded were being treated in homes because of fears they could be arrested from hospitals, making it difficult to confirm the toll. It said several were shot in the head or chest.

Iranian authorities heavily restrict media coverage of the protests and have periodically shut off internet access, making it difficult to confirm details of the unrest.

The semiofficial Fars news agency reported protests in Javanrud on Sunday night, saying security forces were fired upon with live ammunition. It said two people were killed and four wounded. There were no immediate reports in state-linked media about the violence on Monday.

Funerals have often been the scene of renewed protests in recent weeks, as they were during the 1979 revolution that brought the clerics to power. The latest demonstrations mark the biggest challenge to the theocracy in over a decade.

At least 426 people have been killed and more than 17,400 arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group monitoring the unrest. It says at least 55 members of the security forces have been killed.

Jalal Mahmoudzadeh, a lawmaker representing the Kurdish city of Mahabad, told the Etemad daily that 11 people have been killed during protests in the city since late October, many of them in recent days. He said some members of the security forces fired upon homes and businesses on Saturday, and he called on authorities to adopt a softer touch.

The unrest cast a shadow over the World Cup on Monday, where the Iranian national team faced off against England. Iran's players did not sing along to their national anthem, and some fans chanted Amini's name at the 22nd minute of the match.

The violence has also spilled across the border into neighboring Iraq's northern Kurdish region. Iran has blamed the unrest at home in part on Kurdish groups based in Iraq, and has targeted them with missile and drone attacks.

Iran said Monday that its latest strikes were necessary to protect the country's borders, while Kurdish officials condemned the attacks as unprovoked aggression. Iraq's central government, which is dominated by parties close to Iran, also condemned the strikes.

A strike late Sunday killed a member of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, said Mohammed Nazif Qaderi, a senior official in the Kurdish Iranian group living in exile in Iraq.

The group said Iranian surface-to-surface missiles and drones hit its bases and adjacent refugee camps in Koya and Jejnikan. The group also asserted that the strikes had hit a hospital in Koya.

The Iranian strikes come in the wake of a visit to Baghdad last week by Esmail Ghaani, the commander of Iran's elite Quds Force.

Some Kurdish groups have been engaged in a low-intensity conflict with Tehran since the 1979 revolution. Iran accuses them of inciting protests in Iran and smuggling weapons into the country, allegations the Kurdish groups have denied. Iran has not provided evidence to back up the claims.

On Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani told reporters that Iran had acted to “protect its borders and security of its citizens based on its legal rights.” He alleged that the government in Baghdad and the Erbil-based administration of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region had failed to implement purported commitments to prevent threats against Iran from Iraqi areas.

The government of the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq condemned the strikes as a “gross infringement of international law and neighborly relations.”

Qaderi told The Associated Press the Kurdish opposition groups in Iraq support the protests in Iran, which he described as a reaction to “the policies of this regime” he said oppresses its people. He denied that his group has sent fighters or weapons to Iran.

He said that his group had moved fighters away from the border to avoid giving Iran an “excuse” for further attacks. He called on the international community to prevent further aggression by Iran.

The United States condemned the latest Iranian strikes. “Such indiscriminate and illegal attacks place civilians at risk, violate Iraqi sovereignty, and jeopardize the hard-fought security and stability of Iraq and the Middle East," Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, who heads US Central Command, said in a statement.

Sunday's Iranian strikes in northern Iraq come a day after Türkiye launched deadly airstrikes over northern regions of Syria and Iraq, targeting Kurdish groups that Ankara holds responsible for last week’s bomb attack in Istanbul.

On Monday, Turkish officials said suspected Kurdish militants in Syria fired rockets into the border town of Karkamis in Türkiye, killing two people, including a teacher and a 5-year-old boy.

Source: Asharq al-Awsat.

Link: https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/4000011/activists-iranian-forces-unleash-heavy-fire-protesters%C2%A0.

Iran says average age of arrested protesters is 15

October 5, 2022

According to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the latest protests in Iran are being attended by some of the youngest age groups ever to attend protests in the country.

Ali Fadavi, deputy commander of the IRGC, said today that the average age of the arrests from the protests is 15. He claimed these youths are being encouraged by social media and foreign media to “sacrifice themselves” in the protests. Fadavi did not go into details, but the number is not necessarily shocking. Looking at images of protests in Iran, especially at schools, one can see a predominance of young girls — many not even college-age. 

Among the young women to take part in the protests was 17-year-old Nika Shakarami. She protested against the mandatory hijab and went missing on Sept. 20. According to various opposition sources, she was later buried in a city outside of her hometown. According to social media users, Shakarami was being chased by the police before her death.

According to Iranian media, Shakarami was found lifeless in someone’s front yard. The cause of death was falling from a rooftop, according to official reports. Iranian media said that eight men have been detained for questioning over her death, but there are no further details at this time. 

Iran's leadership continues to paint these protests as a foreign plot. President Ebrahim Raisi expressed support for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s first comments on the protests, placing the blame on the United States and Israel. Raisi said, “During his speech, the leader presented a complete analysis of the latest events and seditions against the country and the revolution, which were understandable for everyone.” Khamenei said that the United States and Israel are provoking and instigating the protests due to Iran’s progress, and they are unrelated to the mandatory hijab issue.

The protests started over two weeks ago when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was detained by the country’s morality police for violating hijab laws. Amini later fell into a coma at the detention center and died shortly thereafter. Her death caused outrage not only because of the loss of a young life, but because it was during the enforcement of a very unpopular law at the hands of a notorious police unit that is equally unpopular in Iran. 

Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei spoke today about Amini’s death. He said that all the events that took place occurred within one hour. After Amini was transferred to the detention center, the video shows her walking back and forth and talking to other individuals. Then she suddenly collapsed and was transferred to a hospital. Iranian authorities have released video, but regardless of the details, the anger stems from the fact that she was detained to begin with.

Source: al-Monitor.

Link: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/10/iran-says-average-age-arrested-protesters-15.