Students demonstrated in Tehran and other Iranian cities on Saturday against an ongoing crackdown on dissidents over the death last month of Mahsa Amini, who was in custody by the Islamic Republic’s notorious Morality Police.
Iranians living abroad and their supporters rallied in solidarity in cities around the world.
A wave of street violence has rocked Iran since Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, died after being arrested by vice squads for allegedly flouting the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women.
Nightly protests have been going on for more than two weeks, despite a bloody crackdown that has claimed more than 80 lives, according to a human rights group.
“Woman, life, freedom” and “Death to the dictator” they chanted in the streets of Amini’s hometown of Saqqez in the province of Kurdistan.
On Saturday, riot police gathered at key crossroads across the capital as students demonstrated in Enghelab Square (Revolution Square) near Tehran University in the city center to urge the release of arrested students.
Police clashed with the protesters who chanted slogans and arrested some of them, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported.
Video footage shared by the Oslo-based Iranian human rights group also showed student protests in other cities, including the second-largest city of Mashhad and Karaj west of the capital.
You could see the demonstrators singing and women who had taken off their headscarves.
Demonstrations in support have been called in 159 cities around the world – from Auckland to New York and from Seoul to Zurich, the group Iranians for Justice and Human Rights said.
In Rome, half a dozen women cut their hair in solidarity at a rally of around 1,000 people.
But in Beirut, the leader of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, Hasan Nasrallah, described Amini’s death as a “vague incident” to be used against Tehran.
“This vague incident was exploited and people took to the streets,” Nasrallah said, adding that the protests did not reflect the true will of the Iranian people.
– arrests of foreigners –
Protests in Iran flared up on September 16 when Amini was pronounced dead three days after she fell into a coma following her arrest.
The Iranian human rights group says at least 83 people were killed in the raid. Amnesty International says it has confirmed 52 deaths, while Iran’s Fars agency puts the death toll at “around 60”.
It is the bloodiest unrest in Iran since a crackdown on demonstrations in November 2019 over a sudden rise in fuel prices that has killed at least 304 people, according to Amnesty International.
Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister who has been under house arrest for more than a decade, posted a message on opposition group Kaleme’s Instagram account, urging security forces to stop the violence.
“I would like to remind all armed forces of their pledge to protect our country, Iran, and people’s lives, property and rights,” he said.
Iranian intelligence said on Friday that “nine foreign nationals” including those from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland were arrested “at or behind the scene of the unrest” along with 256 members of banned opposition groups.
Riots also erupted on Friday in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Balochistan province, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said two of its colonels were killed, bringing the official death toll to 20 in clashes in the province that have seen three police stations attacked.
“Several chain stores were looted and set on fire, and a number of banks and government centers were also damaged,” said Sistan-Balochistan Governor Hossein Khiabani.
Poverty-stricken Sistan-Balochistan is a flashpoint for clashes with drug-smuggling gangs, as well as Baloch minority rebels and Sunni Muslim extremist groups.
Iran blames external forces for the nationwide protests.
On Wednesday, the Revolutionary Guards launched cross-border rocket and drone strikes that killed 14 people in autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan and accused rebel groups in the region of fueling the unrest.
The US said one of its citizens was killed in the strikes.
On Saturday, Iranian forces carried out a fresh bombardment of Kurdish rebel bases across the border, causing damage but no casualties, a rebel official told AFP.
