Iranian officials claim she died after suffering a "heart attack" and falling into a coma (she was detained for allegedly breaking rules on wearing the hijab). But Amini's family -- and demonstrators across the country -- aren't buying it. Watching dramatic images of protesters burning their hijabs, cutting their hair and violent confrontations with security forces, shows how little has changed since my own teenage years at the hands of police and Revolutionary Guard brutality.

I was 13 years old when in 1979 the Islamic Revolution toppled Iran's monarchy. Despite promises from the revolutionary leaders to expand social freedoms, within a year, women's rights to self-expression were eroded. Activities like dancing, wearing bikinis, even holding our boyfriends' hands in public became largely forbidden.

I was one of those who spoke out against the regime and paid the price -- though not as dearly as some of my fellow activists. At the age of 16, I was accused of being an anti-revolutionary and sent to Tehran's notorious Evin prison.

Even now, decades later, every night when I go to bed, I think of my cellmates. Many are dead, executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran in the 1980s. And those who survived, like me, were tortured in prison. Guards and interrogators, all men, tied us to bare beds in small, windowless rooms that stunk of sweat, urine, and fear, and they lashed the soles of our feet with lengths of cable -- heavy, hard, and cruel. It hurt so much that I could not even scream. I was later led to a mock execution, threatened, and raped. I was practically a child and so were many of my cellmates. We had dared protest the fanatical, autocratic laws of the newly formed regime with Ayatollah Khomeini as its supreme leader.