Bani Yaghoub died in prison on October 13 at Hamadan prison. She was a 27 year old medical student arrested by Iran’s morality police while walking with her fiance in a city park. He was released an hour later, she was kept in prison overnight.
By the next morning she was dead. The police handed over her bruised body to her parents. There was blood in her nose and in her ears. How did this woman die? By her own hands as the police insist or were the police behind her death?
Officials are saying that the woman committed suicide by hanging herself. Her family though don’t believe that. Her brother had spoken to his sister fifteen times prior to the time that the police say she took her own life. At no time during their phone calls did she indicate that she was thinking of killing herself. Her father is accusing the police with assaulting his daughter and then murdering her.
While the Iranian people have become accustomed to political activists and journalists being arrested and in some cases killed Yaghoub’s death has touched a nerve within the society. She was an ordinary woman who should be getting ready for her wedding and finishing medical school.
“Now people see that even an ordinary person does not have basic security; and a person simply can get arrested on a street and, instead of returning home, their bodies are buried in a cemetery,” he tells RFE/RL. “It has become a very sensitive issue in our society and created many questions.”
The Iranian Alumni Association of Majlis Representatives has asked the Ayatollah Hashemi Shahrudi to have an investigation into the matter of her death. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi has discussed the possibility of having an autopsy completed. Mehrangiz Kar says that the police and judiciary are responsible for her death regardless of how she died.
“Who, how, and why could push such a young girl — one who had a bright future ahead of her — to the point of anxiety and despair?” Kar an Iranian-born, human-rights lawyer and author tells Radio Farda. “No matter what has happened, the authorities are responsible for this death.”
While the authorities can not ignore this case because of the high media coverage it is feared that they will drag it out until the publicity surrounding it fades away.
Are you wondering what crime Yaghoub committed with her fiance that was bad enough to be held overnight in jail? She and the man she loved were holding hands in public.
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