n 13 September 2022, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, was arrested in Tehran for allegedly violating strict government rules that require women to wear a hijab, or head covering. Three days later, she died in hospital. Eyewitnesses said that Mahsa - her official Iranian name, although her family and friends use her Kurdish name, Zhina - was beaten over the head in a police van after her arrest. Iranian police claimed that she suffered a heart attack. The case sparked protests against the Islamic Republic authorities, reigniting unrest that has flared up on several occasions since 2009. But those protests also have deeper roots in a longer history of popular unrest in Iran, dating back to the 1940s when new forms of politics entered the country as a consequence of the Anglo-Soviet invasion of
