The grave of Mahsa Amini, the young Iranian Kurdish woman whose death sparked a protest movement that rattled Iran’s clerical leadership, has been vandalised, according to activists and the family lawyer.

Amini, 22, died in September after being arrested by Tehran’s morality police for purportedly flouting the strict dress rules for women in the Islamic republic.

The protests that began after her death challenged the Islamic system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 revolution. They have weakened in amplitude over the last months but actions still continue.

Amini, who had been visiting Tehran with her family, is buried in her hometown of Saqez in Iran’s Kurdistan province with activists alleging the authorities are determined to prevent any public rallying around it.

The France-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) said that the grave, which features her Kurdish name Zhina in large Persian letters, had been attacked on the morning of May 21.

Images published on social media, said to be from the Instagram account of her brother Ashkan, showed that the glass protecting a portrait of Amini at the head of the tombstone had shattered.

Activists accuse the authorities of suppressing the protests with a crackdown that has left over 500 dead, according to Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights.

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