RALEIGH, N.C. — A group of North Carolinians is traveling to the nation’s capital this weekend to participate in a demonstration to mark one year since Mahsa Amini’s death in Iran.

Amini was detained by Iran’s morality police for allegedly not wearing her mandatory headscarf correctly. The 22-year-old died Sept. 16, 2022, in morality police custody. Iran’s government insists she was not abused.

Her death sparked demonstrations all over the world including in North Carolina.

Saba Mokry, an Iranian-American who lives in the Triangle, says she’ll be joining the demonstration in Washington and wants to make sure people don’t forget about what happened one year ago.

“It’s about lacking in basic human rights. It’s about not having freedom of speech, freedom of assembly. People are protesting because of the corruption of the government. Tens and thousands of people have been detained since Mahsa Amini’s killing,” Mokry said.

“People are generally mad about what’s happening not only with what’s going on inside of Iran, but people are upset because of the international community turning a blind eye to this,” she said.

The anniversary of Amini’s death comes just a few days after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the MAHSA Act. The measure targets Iran for its human rights record and places restrictions on the country’s ability to import or export its expanding arsenal of weapons. The bill will now go to the Senate.

“As Iranian-Americans living in the free world, we feel like we need to be the voice of the Iranians in Iran, not only be the voice of the Iranians, but also convey to our representatives outside of Iran that we don’t want any sort of a deal with this brutal regime,” Mokry said.

“We’ve lobbied our representatives and we were really fortunate that just two days ago, MAHSA Act in House of Representative was passed, which calls for sanctioning the supreme leader of Iran and the president of Iran and their respective offices. So we’re one step closer to where we want to be,” she said.