Mahsa Amini
Mahsa Amini (; 21 September 1999 – 16 September 2022), also known as Jina Amini (), was an Iranian woman whose arrest in Tehran for opposing mandatory hijab and subsequent death in police custody sparked a wave of protests throughout Iran. People and governments around the world reacted widely to her death. Her death sparked widespread protest in Iranian society, resulting in major protests in various cities in Iran and acts of solidarity around the world. Amini's death ignited the global Woman, Life, Freedom movement. She and the movement were selected as candidates for the Sakharov Prize in 2023 by European Parliament for defending freedom and human rights. Early life Mahsa Jina Amini was born on 21 September 1999 to a Kurdish family in Saqqez, Kurdistan Province, in northwestern Iran. While Mahsa was her legal given name (as only Persian names may be registered in Iran), her Kurdish name was Jina (also spelled Zhina), and was the name she was known as to her family. In Persian "Mahsa" means "similar to the moon" and in Kurdish, Jina means "life" or "a life-giving person". The government authorities changed the name on her birth certificate to Mahsa so that having a Kurdish