Iranians again took to the streets on Saturday to demonstrate against power, a month after the start of the protest movement sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini and repressed in blood, according to media and NGOs.
On September 16, this 22-year-old Iranian Kurd died three days after her arrest by the morality police in Tehran for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women, including the wearing of sail.
The Iranian authorities claim that the young woman died of an illness and not of “beatings”, according to a medical report rejected by her father. Her cousin said she died after “a violent blow to the head”.
The protest sparked solidarity rallies abroad and the crackdown, which claimed more than 100 lives according to NGOs, was condemned by the international community.
Despite severe internet disruptions and authorities blocking access to Instagram and WhatsApp apps, Iranians, at the online call of activists, gathered in the streets of the city of Ardabil on Saturday ( northwest) according to videos shared on Twitter.
Shopkeepers went on strike in Saghez, the hometown of Mahsa Amini in the province of Kurdistan (north-west), and in Mahabad (north), according to the online media 1500tasvirwhich identifies human rights violations.
“Schoolgirls in the village of Ney in Marivan [ouest] caused street fires and shouted anti-government chants,” said Hengaw, a Norway-based Iranian Kurdish rights group.
Young people also demonstrated at universities in Tehran, Isfahan (south) and Kermanshah (northwest), according to images shared online.
” Who would have thought “
The demonstrators were responding to a call from activists for massive protests under the slogan “The beginning of the end! ” power.
These activists have encouraged Iranians to demonstrate in places where security forces are not present and to chant “Death to the dictator”, in reference to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Faced with these demonstrations, the Islamic Development Coordination Council, an official body, called on Iranians to say in mosques, after evening prayers on Saturday, “their anger against the rioters and the sedition”.
Since September 16, young women, students and schoolgirls, have spearheaded the demonstrations: they chant anti-government slogans, take off their headscarves and confront the police.
At least 108 people have been killed in the crackdown, according to the Oslo-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR). Amnesty International claimed that at least 23 children between the ages of 11 and 17 had been “killed by security forces”. And hundreds of people were arrested.
Denouncing the policy of double standards, the head of Iranian diplomacy, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said on Friday: “Who would have thought that the death of a single girl would be so important for Westerners? What have they done about the hundreds of thousands of martyrs and deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Lebanon”.
“Brave Women”
Westerners continue to support the protesters.
On Friday, US President Joe Biden, whose country is a sworn enemy of Iran, said he stood “alongside the brave women of Iran”, calling on the government to “end violence against its citizens”.
Iranian leaders accuse the United States of destabilizing their country by fomenting “riots”.
As the European Union prepares to impose sanctions on Iran on Monday, the head of Iranian diplomacy called on the EU to adopt a “realistic approach”.
After a massive campaign of arrests against artists, dissidents, journalists and sportspeople, Iranian filmmaker Mani Haghighi claimed in a video on Friday that he had been banned from traveling to the UK because of his support for the protests. , which he called “a great moment in history”.
Elsewhere in Iran, in Zahedan, the capital of southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province, security forces killed at least 93 people in violence in late September and early October during protests over the alleged rape of a young girl by a police officer, according to the IHR.
The protests in Iran are the largest since those in 2019 against rising gasoline prices in the oil-rich country.