Iranian journalist Niloufar Hamedi specialized in covering women¡¯s issues. So when her editor noticed an Instagram post about a young woman in a hospital in bad shape after being arrested for violating the country¡¯s strict Islamic dress code, Hamedi headed straight there.
She found relatives of the woman, Mahsa Amini, 22, holding one another tightly in a fluorescent-lit ward inside Kasra Hospital in Tehran, Iran. She snapped a picture and posted it on Twitter ¡ª and then it went viral. That was Sept. 16, the day Amini died.
Anti-government protests soon spread around Iran, igniting chants of ¡°Women, life, freedom,¡± and they shook the country for many months. But Hamedi, 30, was not there to witness it: She had been arrested days after Amini¡¯s death.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.