The European Union’s top human rights prize on Thursday, awarded Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman who died in police custody in Iran last year.

• She was arrested by the so-called Iranian Morality Police for not wearing the burqa (a black scarf) properly in a public place. Several videos that went viral on social media platforms showed she slipped into a coma after being tortured brutally by the Iranian police.
• This had prompted worldwide protests against the country’s conservative Islamic theocracy. 
• The EU award, named for Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, was created in 1988 to honour individuals or groups who defend human rights and fundamental freedoms. Sakharov, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, died in 1989.