By Biodun Busari

Hundreds of protesters swarmed the streets of Iran on Wednesday to mark the 40 days since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who died in police custody.

The Iranian people especially female students have been protesting her death who the police arrested and detained for allegedly breaching Islamic women’s dress code.   

According to BBC, viral videos revealed that hundreds of men and women defied security forces to gather in Saqqez as they shouted: “Woman, life, freedom” and “Death to the dictator.”

Read also: 185 killed as protests rock Iran over death of 22-year-old woman by police

They are two of the signature chants of the anti-government unrest that has swept across Iran since Amini died.

The 22-year-old Kurdish woman was detained by the morality police in the capital, Tehran, on 13 September for allegedly wearing her hijab “improperly.”

Reports said she fell into a coma after collapsing at a detention centre and died three days later.

It was reported that officers beat her on the head with a baton and banged her head against a vehicle, but the police denied that she was mistreated and said she suffered a heart attack.

Many Iranians were fumed at the grave incident and the first protests took place after Amini’s funeral in Saqqez, when women ripped off their headscarves in solidarity.

The protests spread quickly and evolved into one of the most serious challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution.

Norway-based Iran Human Rights says at least 234 protesters, including 29 children, have been killed by security forces in a violent crackdown on what Iran’s leaders have portrayed as “riots” fomented by foreign enemies.