The parents and brother of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurdish woman who died last year, who were to receive the Sakharov Prize awarded posthumously to the young victim, have been prevented from leaving Iran, her lawyer told AFP on Saturday. France.
They were “prohibited from boarding the flight that was to take them to France for the Sakharov Prize award ceremony and from leaving the country yesterday at midnight, even though they had visas,” explained lawyer Chirinne Ardakani. According to her, their passports have been “confiscated.”
The Sakharov Prize, the EU’s highest distinction in human rights, was awarded last October by the European Parliament to Mahsa Amini and the Women, Life and Freedom movement, bloodily repressed by the authorities in Iran.
The death of Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022 at the age of 22, three days after being detained by police for wearing the headscarf incorrectly, sparked months of large-scale protests against Iran’s political and religious leaders. , whose repression resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of arrests.
“Never before have the Iranian authorities mobilized so much to prevent the families of the victims from demonstrating before the international community,” said Ardakani.
“The brutal murder of Dina Mahsa Amini marked a turning point,” stressed the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Robert Metso, when announcing the award. “The motto ‘Women, life, freedom’ has become a rallying cry for all those who defend equality, dignity and freedom in Iran,” he added.