(Paris) Hundreds of mourners demonstrated Thursday in a Kurdish region of western Iran, where violence has left at least three dead, defying the bloody crackdown two months after the death of Mahsa Amini.
This week’s protests coincide with commemorations of 2019’s “Bloody November”, when hundreds were killed in a crackdown sparked by rising fuel prices.
Authorities appear to be struggling to contain the wave of protest sparked on September 16 by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd arrested for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code.
On Thursday, security forces killed two protesters in Boukan and Sanandaj, in areas populated by Kurds.
In Sanandaj, residents in mourning paid tribute to “four victims of popular resistance”, 40 days after their death as tradition dictates, reported the NGO for the defense of the Kurds of Iran Hengaw, based in Norway.
A member of the security forces was also killed in Sanandaj, where residents flocked to the streets as gunfire rang out, according to a video published by Hengaw and verified by AFP.
“Death to the dictator”, shouted the demonstrators according to a video posted online, marching in a street where fires were lit, in the howling of horns, shouting their anger against the supreme leader, the ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
It is now feared that the regime will become “more violent after being unable to repress the people for two months”, analyzes Saeid Golkar, professor at the American University of Tennessee in Chattanooga.
The Iranian regime, he explained to AFP, could thus decide to crush the movement in the same way as it did in November 2019, when the security forces killed hundreds of people in A few days.
Attack on a market
Without a link being able to be established with this movement, two automatic weapon attacks carried out by assailants on motorcycles, which have not been claimed, left ten dead on Wednesday in two cities in Iran.
In Izeh, in the province of Khuzestan (southwest), seven people, including a woman and two children aged 9 and 13, were killed by “terrorists” who opened fire on demonstrators and army forces. order, according to officials.
The attack is the second attributed by the authorities to “terrorists” since the beginning of the protest movement, after an attack claimed by the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) which killed 13 people on October 26 in a Muslim shrine in Shiraz. , in southern Iran.
But a family member of the slain 9-year-old boy, identified as Kian Pirfalak, blamed security forces for carrying out the Izeh attack, according to a report from Radio Farda, a state-funded Persian-language radio station. United and based in Prague.
“He was returning home with his father and was hit by bullets fired by the corrupt Islamic Republic regime. Their car was attacked from all sides,” the person said on the radio.
Four hours later, in Isfahan, Iran’s third largest city, in the center of the country, two assailants on motorbikes killed a police officer and two paramilitaries from the Bassidji militia, according to media reports.
“False Trial”
According to Hengaw, strikes were observed Thursday in four towns in western Iran where security forces are accused of killing ten protesters the day before, including Saghez, the hometown of Mahsa Amini in Kurdistan.
At least 342 people were killed in the repression of the movement, according to a report established Wednesday by Iran Human Rights (IHR), another NGO based in Oslo.
The authorities accuse Iran’s “enemies” of seeking to destabilize the country. On Thursday, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abollahian accused Israel and Western intelligence services of “planning” a civil war in Iran.
Since Sunday, Iranian justice has sentenced five people to death for their involvement in the demonstrations.
Amnesty International on Wednesday denounced “the appalling use of the death penalty” by Iran “to suppress the popular uprising with increased brutality”. According to the NGO, the Iranian authorities have called for the death penalty for at least 21 people during “fake trials aimed at intimidating” the demonstrators.