Iran, the Islamic nation in Western Asia, has seen an intense protests against the mandatory Hijab mandate in the recent months. The Khamenei government has been equally brutal in arresting, torturing and even killing the protesters to suppress the movement, fearing a repeat of another Arab Spring.
The demonstrators, who are hit and injured by the Iranian security forces during the ongoing nationwide protests, fear getting treated at the country's hospitals since it can land them in jail. Many protesters, who have been detained in the last few months, have been reportedly tortured, prosecuted, or even killed.
Despite of the grave risks, there are doctors and medics who have taken it up on themselves to treat the injured protesters in their offices, the demonstrators’ homes or elsewhere.
One such doctor was 36-year-old Aida Rostami, who has reportedly been killed by the Iranian authorities in capital Tehran. Rostami was treating protesters in Ekbatan and other western neighborhoods of Tehran. However, she reportedly disappeared last week. A day later, Aida's tortured body was handed over to her family, reported IranWire, a joint venture of a group of Iranian journalists in the diaspora.
Rostami, after treating several injured protesters in Ekbatan on December 12, realized she was running out of some medical items such as sterile gas, a source close to the family told IranWire.
After she moved out of a protester's house to get the things she needed, Rostami was never seen alive again.
Rostami's family received a call from a local police station the next morning, informing them that the doctor had died in a car crash overnight. the family was told to pick up Aida's body at a morgue.
The car accident was "definitely" not the cause of her death, a source told IranWire.
"The medical examiner told her family that they were ordered not to reveal the true cause of Aida's death. They said that she did not die in a car accident, they killed her."
The security officers allowed the family members to see Aida's body after their repeated insistence.
"It is not possible that when you are driving and you get an accident, both of your hands would break, your lower torso gets bruised, and your eye completely comes out," the source told IranWire, elaborating the details of brutal torture Rostami could have faced.
Her family also requested the Iranian police to show them Rostami’s vehicle and the spot where the alleged car accident occurred. However, the authorities did not budge.
The doctor's last rites took place and she was buried in Gorgan, where the family is originally from.
