Mahsa Amini's tomb vandalised in Iran

The tomb of Mahsa Amini, whose death after she was arrested for not wearing her veil properly sparked strong protests in Iran, has been vandalised by unknown persons, her family denounced.

"The glass on her grave also bothers them," Ashkan Amini, the young woman's brother, wrote on the social networking site Instagram, a post that has since disappeared.

The message is accompanied by a photo showing the broken glass covering the grave and a portrait of the 22-year-old at the Aichi cemetery in the city of Saqez in Iranian Kurdistan.

"If they break it a thousand times, we'll fix it again. Let's see who gets tired first," said Ashkan, who added that this is the second time his sister's grave has been vandalised.

The death in police custody of Amini after she was arrested for not wearing the Islamic headscarf properly in September sparked the largest protests against the Islamic Republic and the country's theocratic system in decades.

The protests began precisely at the Aichi cemetery on 17 September, the day after her death. There, Iranian women shouted the first "woman, life, freedom", the slogan of the protests, and burned the first veils.

The protests have faded in the wake of a heavy state crackdown that has resulted in some 500 deaths and thousands of arrests, as well as seven executions, one of them in public.

Small protests again took place in several cities across the country last Friday, spurred by the execution that day of three protesters for crimes allegedly committed during the uprising.

Of all the forms of protest and disobedience, the only one that survived was the rejection of the veil by many women despite attempts by the authorities to re-impose the wearing of the veil.