Iran’s police command warned on Wednesday that its units would oppose “with full force” protesters who have been protesting for 12 days over the death of a young woman arrested by vice police.
“Today, the enemies of the Islamic Republic of Iran and some rioters seek to disrupt the order and security of the nation using all pretexts,” the police command said in a statement.
“The police personnel will oppose with all their strength the conspiracies of counter-revolutionaries and hostile elements and will act firmly everywhere in the country against those who disturb public order and security”, he continued, quoted by the Fars news agency.
Protests have been taking place every night since September 16, when 22-year-old Iranian Mahsa Amini died in hospital, three days after she was arrested in Tehran for breaking a strict dress code for women. in the Islamic Republic of Iran, who must cover their hair in public.
According to a latest report given Tuesday by the Fars agency, “about 60 people have been killed” since September 16. Police reported 10 officers dead, but it was unclear if these were among the 60 dead.
The authorities also reported the arrest of more than 1,200 demonstrators since September 16.
For his part, government spokesman Ali Bahadori-Jahromi announced at the end of the Council of Ministers that “the government was going to ask the judicial authority to compel the authors and instigators of the riots to repair the damage caused to the public goods” during the demonstrations.
He accused “separatist groups” of supporting the perpetrators of the degradations and indicated that the latter had, according to the Ministry of Intelligence, benefited from “financial support” and “the close cooperation of certain hostile media and social networks which played a role in destroying public property and causing death and injury”.
Later in the day, Iran’s Attorney General Mohammad-Jafar Montazeri announced a circular on measures to be taken against those arrested during the protests, according to Mizan Onlinethe site of the Judicial Authority.
He called for judgment “with speed, precision and firmness” in particular “those who killed or injured” law enforcement, “having destroyed and set fire to property and private and public buildings”, “activists on the networks (having) incited rioters”, and “foreign nationals who were present in the riots”.
Mahsa Amini died of “a violent blow to the head”, according to her cousin
Mahsa Amini, whose death sparked these protests in Iran, died after “a violent blow to the head” by the morality police on the day of her arrest, assured her cousin who lives in Iraq.
The 22-year-old was in Tehran for a family vacation before starting her university studies in the province of West Azerbaijan (northwest). But his path crossed that of the morality police on September 13, Erfan Salih Mortezaee, 34, told AFP.
The latter has been living in Iraqi Kurdistan (north) for a year, where he has joined the Iranian Kurdish nationalist group Komala, which has long been involved in an insurrection against Iranian power.
He claimed to have called the mother of Mahsa Amini, who told him the facts of this fatal September 13.
“Jhina’s death has opened the doors to popular anger,” said Mr. Mortezaee, in military fatigues, using his cousin’s Kurdish first name to refer to the protests in Iran.
According to him, the young woman, accompanied by her parents and her 17-year-old junior, was in Tehran to visit relatives.
Mahsa, her brother and other women in the family wanted to take a tour of the capital. Leaving the Haghani metro station, “the morality police stopped them, questioning Jhina and his relatives,” said Mr. Mortezaee, met at a base in Komala near Suleimaniyeh.
The younger brother tried to appease the police by explaining that they are “in Tehran for the first time” and “don’t know the local traditions”. Nothing works.
“The policeman told him ‘we are going to take him on board, teach him the rules and teach him how to wear the hijab and how to dress'”, added the cousin, assuring that the young woman was “dressed like all women in Iran, and wore a hijab”.
” Fainted “
In Iran, women must cover their hair and body to below the knees. But on a daily basis, a large part of them allow themselves certain freedoms – a scarf carelessly tied over their hair, for example.
“The police beat Jhina, they beat her in front of her brother, he is a witness,” Mortezaee said. “They slapped her, with a stick they hit her on the hands, on the legs. »
They also sprayed pepper spray in her brother’s face, to incapacitate him, before taking the women away in a vice squad van. Direction their premises, rue Vezarat.
The beatings will continue inside the vehicle, according to Mr. Mortezaee. “When they hit her on the head with the stick, she lost consciousness. »
After arriving at the station, it took another at least an hour and a half before she was taken to hospital, according to Mr Mortezaee. After three days in a coma, he will be pronounced dead on September 16.
Also according to the mother’s account reported by the cousin, the doctors at the hospital informed the family that their daughter “had received a violent blow to the head”.
Authorities deny any involvement in Mahsa Amini’s death. But since then, Iranians have been demonstrating every night against his death.
But this time, “women are at the forefront and bravely participating in the protests,” Mortezaee said.
“Our young people know that if this regime falls, a better life awaits them. »