(Paris) The police in Iran warned on Wednesday that they would act with “all their force” in the face of the demonstrations, triggered by the death in custody of a young woman and whose repression has already left dozens dead.
Posted at 10:13 a.m.
Fresh protests erupted on Tuesday evening over the September 16 death in hospital of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman arrested three days earlier by vice police in Tehran for breaking a strict dress code for women in Islamic Republic of Iran.
“Police personnel will oppose with all their strength the conspiracies of counter-revolutionaries and hostile elements and will act firmly against those who disturb public order and security throughout the country,” the police command said in a statement, according to the Fars news agency.
Human rights defenders have in recent days reported police firing pellets and live ammunition at protesters.
According to a latest report given Tuesday by the Iranian news agency Fars, “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 NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), based in Oslo, spoke on Monday of “at least 76 dead”.
“Separatist groups”
The Iranian authorities denounce in these demonstrations “separatist groups” and “foreign plots”, pointing the finger at the United States, their sworn enemy.
On Wednesday, Iran carried out strikes against armed Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in Iraqi Kurdistan, killing at least seven people and injuring 28 according to Iraqi Kurdish authorities. Baghdad summoned the Iranian ambassador to protest.
The Iranian authorities deny any involvement in the death of the young woman from the Iranian province of Kurdistan, but the family claims the opposite and has filed a complaint against the “authors of her arrest” according to her lawyer.
According to Erfan Salih Mortezaee, a cousin of Mahsa Amini, met in Iraqi Kurdistan, the young woman died after “a violent blow to the head” given by the morality police on the day of her arrest on September 13.
The police “hit” her before taking her to a van where “the beatings continued”, according to the story of the young woman’s mother reported by Mr. Mortezaee. She was then taken to hospital, where she died after three days in a coma.
“Organizer role”
According to opposition media based abroad, like every evening since September 16, demonstrations took place on Tuesday evening in several cities. But activists said disruptions to internet connections were making it increasingly difficult to transmit the images.
On Wednesday, Telecommunications Minister Issa Zarépour said that “restrictions have been applied to certain platforms, in particular American ones” which “played a role of organizer of the riots”. “The lifting of restrictions on the internet depends on a decision by the authorities. »
Since September 16, protesters have shouted anti-government slogans, torn up photos of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Imam Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, thrown stones at security forces, set cars on fire police and set fire to public buildings, according to videos.
Authorities have reported the arrest of more than 1,200 protesters since September 16. Activists, lawyers and journalists have also been arrested, according to NGOs.
On Tuesday, Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was arrested in Tehran for “inciting rioters to demonstrate”.
Women are at the forefront of protests in Iran. They are supported by several events abroad.
As several European countries have already done, Spain summoned the Iranian ambassador on Wednesday to protest against the repression of the demonstrations.
The protests in Iran are the largest since those of November 2019, caused by the rise in gasoline prices, which had been severely suppressed – 230 dead according to an official report, more than 300 according to Amnesty International.