On Monday Iranian police called the death of Amini an “unfortunate incident” that they do not want to see repeated,the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
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.
The semiofficial Fars news agency reported late on Sunday that police also arrested several people from about 500 protesters who had gathered on Sunday at Azadi Square in Sanandaj,the capital of Iran’s Kurdistan province.
Fars said the protesters smashed car windows and set fire to street garbage cans. The agency’s website carried a brief video showing scores of men and women protesting,claiming the police’s explanation about Amini’s death was “not reasonable”.
Amini,who was Kurdish,was buried on Saturday in her home city of Saqez,also in western Iran. Protests erupted there after her funeral and police also then fired tear gas to disperse the demonstrators.