(Paris) More than 75 people have been killed in Iran in the repression of the protest triggered ten days ago by the death of a young woman detained by the morality police, an NGO said on Monday.
Updated yesterday at 1:50 p.m.
The Iranian authorities, for their part, put forward a death toll of 41 including demonstrators and police. They also announced the arrest of more than 1,200 demonstrators.
The protests, which resumed on Monday evening, erupted on September 16 after the death in hospital of 22-year-old Iranian girl Mahsa Amini, arrested three days earlier in Tehran for breaking a strict dress code for women in Islamic Republic of Iran.
According to the NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), based in Oslo, “at least 76 people were killed in the demonstrations” including “six women and four children”, in 14 provinces of the country. The IHR claimed to have obtained “videos and death certificates confirming live ammunition fired at protesters”.
Since the death of Mahsa Amini, Iranians have taken to the streets every night in Tehran and elsewhere in the country.
“In the morning, my wife drives the children to school and I open my store. Everything is calm,” Mahmoud, 60, said in Valiasr Square in Tehran. “But as soon as night falls and the protests start, I have to close my store. »
Many helmeted police officers armed with sticks then took up position to try to prevent the gatherings.
Some of the demonstrators gathered on the roofs of buildings shout anti-government slogans interspersed with “Woman, Life and Freedom”, said Ali, another resident of the capital.
“Foreign conspiracies”
Monday evening, protests resumed with the same slogans of “Death to the dictator” in the capital and in other cities, according to witnesses.
In Tabriz (north-west), a video released by the IHR showed police firing tear gas at protesters. The sound of bullets is also heard there.
According to recent videos released by AFP, riot police beat demonstrators with batons during protests and students tore up large photos of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his predecessor Ayatollah Khomeini. founding father of the Islamic Republic.
And according to human rights groups, she also fired pellets and live ammunition at protesters who threw rocks, torched police cars and set fire to public buildings.
Other images showed women taking off their veils and setting them on fire, or symbolically cutting their hair, cheered on by crowds, in several cities.
In addition to the more than 1,200 arrests announced by the authorities, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported on Monday the arrest of 20 Iranian journalists since September 16.
Iran has blamed the protest movement on “foreign conspiracies”, pointing the finger at the United States, its sworn enemy.
Its head of diplomacy Hossein Amir-Abdollahian criticized “the interventionist approach of the United States in the affairs of Iran”, accusing them of supporting “the rioters”.
Penalties
Faced with repression, the European Union denounced the “generalized and disproportionate use of force”.
Condemning the “brutal repression” of the protest by Tehran, France indicated on Monday evening that it was examining with its European partners “the options available in response to these new massive violations of women’s rights and human rights in Iran. “.
US President Joe Biden also denounced the repression of the demonstrations, saying he was in solidarity with the “courageous women of Iran”.
Canada has decided to impose sanctions against a dozen Iranian officials and entities including the morality police.
And Berlin called on Iran “not to use violence” against protesters.
But the Iranian authorities remain firm.
On Saturday, conservative President Ebrahim Raïsi called on the police to act against the demonstrators, described as “rioters”. After him, the head of the judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, ruled out any “indulgence” towards the instigators of the “riots”.
Nevertheless, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Nouri Hamedani, an important conservative cleric and ardent defender of Ayatollah Khamenei, called on the authorities to “listen to the demands of the people and solve their problems”.
The protests are the largest since those of November 2019, caused by the rise in gasoline prices in Iran, which had been severely repressed (230 dead according to an official report, more than 300 according to Amnesty International).