(Reuters) – Germany’s foreign minister on Tuesday called on Iran’s leadership to listen to the women protesting in the streets over the death of a woman in police custody, saying they were standing up for basic human rights.
Mahsa Amini, 22, from Iran’s Kurdistan province, fell into a coma and died while waiting with other women held by Iranian morality police, who enforce strict rules in the Islamic Republic requiring women to cover their hair and wear loose-fitting clothes in public.
Her death has sparked popular unrest throughout Iran, during which at least three people have so far been killed.
“They must be listened to, as these women are demanding rights that all people should have,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
(Reporting by Alexander Ratz in Berlin; Writing by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Howard Goller)
