Iran protests after death of Mahsa Amini - in pictures

Iran has been rocked by ten consecutive days of violent protests following the death of 22-year-old Masha Amini in police custody.

Official figures suggest that 41 people have died in clashes between protesters and security forces, although the real figure is thought to be higher. Oslo-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) estimated that by 24 September at least 54 people had been killed while “hundreds have also been injured or arrested”.

Protests have been held in numerous towns and cities across Iran since 17 September, when Amini’s funeral took place in her hometown of Saqez near the border with Iraq.

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Amini died on 16 September three days after being detained by the so-called morality police for allegedly breaking the country’s obligatory dress code laws. Iranian police have denied any mistreatment and claimed she died of “sudden heart failure”.

Since Amini’s funeral, widespread violent unrest has spread to “most of Iran’s 31 provinces and almost all urban centres”, with the protests “posing the most serious test to the hardline state’s authority in more than 13 years”, said The Observer.

Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi said authorities must “deal decisively” with “those who oppose the country’s security and tranquillity”, according to reports from Iranian state media.

As pro-government rallies were held on Sunday, judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei echoed the president’s warning in comments made to the judiciary’s official website Mizan Online. Mohseni-Ejei “emphasized the need for decisive action without leniency” against the instigators of what he described as “riots”, said the site.

Women have been central to the protests sweeping Iran. Many have been “waving and burning their veils” while others have “publicly cut their hair as furious crowds called for the downfall of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei”, said Reuters.

Across the world, at rallies in support of Iranian women, demonstrators have also been seen cutting their hair.

In London, 12 people were arrested and five police officers were injured during a protest outside Iran’s embassy on Sunday. Crowds chanted “Death to the Islamic republic” and waved Iran’s national flag from before 1979, said The Guardian. Some demonstrators “threw missiles at officers and breached police lines”, said the BBC.