According to a semi-official news source, Iranian police described the death of a young woman while she was in prison as a "unfortunate episode" that they do not want to see happen again.
Following her arrest by the morality police in Tehran last week, Mahsa Amini, 22, slipped into a coma and passed away. Iranians outraged by the way security forces treat women protested against the government all throughout the country.
Police reported that Amini became unwell over the weekend while waiting with other women who had been arrested. However, Amini's father stated on Sunday that his daughter was healthy and fit, according to the pro-reform Emtedad news website.
“This incident was unfortunate for us and we wish to never witness such incidents,” Greater Tehran Police Commander Hossein Rahimi said in a statement reported by the Fars news agency.
He said Amini suffered no mistreatment, denying claims aired on social media against the morality police, who enforce strict rules requiring women to cover their hair and wear loose fitting clothes.
“Cowardly accusations have been levelled against the Iranian police. We will wait until the day of judgment but we cannot stop doing security work,” Rahimi said, adding that the morality police was “doing positive work”.
He said he could not comment on the cause of death because this was a medical rather than a security issue.
Amini was from the country’s Kurdistan region, one of the areas where protests took place over the weekend, including at the funeral in her hometown Saqez.
Between 8 to 10 million Kurds live in Iran. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have put down unrest in the country’s Kurdish areas for decades, and the hardline judiciary has sentenced many activists to long jail terms or death.