The September 16 death of the 22-year-old Iranian Kurd sparked the biggest wave of protests and violence the Islamic Republic has seen in nearly three years.
The young woman had been arrested three days earlier by the morality police in Tehran for having, according to them, violated the strict dress code of the Islamic Republic for women, including the wearing of the veil.
Since then, young women, students and schoolgirls have been at the forefront of protests in which they chant anti-government slogans, set their headscarves on fire and clash with security forces in the streets.
“Woman, life, freedom” – slogan of the protest movement – were again chanted overnight from Wednesday to Thursday in Boukan (north-west), city where demonstrators burned the Iranian flag, according to a verified video by AFP.
The protest movement in Iran, the largest since 2019 against the rise in the price of gasoline, has led to demonstrations of solidarity in many cities around the world as well as American and European sanctions targeting Iranian officials involved in the crackdown on protests that left dozens dead and led to hundreds of arrests.
Once again on Thursday, the Iranian regime attacked the United States, accusing its sworn enemy of being responsible for the situation: “Washington and its allies are resorting to a policy of destabilization that is doomed to failure”, a declared the ultraconservative president, Ebrahim Raisi.
– Growing repression –
The repression of the demonstrations has already killed at least 108 people, according to NGOs. Shots and tear gas were again fired at demonstrators who descended on the night across the country, including in the cities of Isfahan (south), Mashhad (northeast), Rasht (north), from Saghez (Amini’s hometown) and the capital Tehran.
Online videos show protesters clashing with security forces seeking to arrest them, sometimes forcing police officers to flee.
In a video verified by AFP, women are manhandled by security forces, including a man who appears to be Armin Amoozad Haramzadeh, the deputy governor of Rasht, in Gilan province.
According to the Oslo-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), energy workers joined the protest movement this week by going on strike at the Asalouyeh petrochemical plant (southwest), in Abadan (west) and Bushehr (south).
Deadly clashes hit Sanandaj in particular, capital of the Kurdistan province where Mahsa Amini is from. The city of Zahedan (southeast) was also affected by violence sparked on September 30 during demonstrations against the alleged rape of a young girl by a police officer, which left at least 93 people dead, according to the IHR.
To deal with the protest, the Iranian authorities have blocked access to social networks, in particular the Instagram and WhatsApp applications, and launched a campaign of mass arrests, as the crackdown increases.
And judges in Iran have been instructed not to hand down “weak” sentences against the “main elements of the riots”, the Judiciary’s news site reported on Thursday in reference to the protests.
In a report published on Wednesday, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) deplored “the unregulated use of pellet shotguns by law enforcement causing injuries to many protesters”, including against the elderly, adolescents or even children.
“The number of detainees is estimated at at least 5,500 people” since the beginning of the movement, according to HRANA.
