(Tehran) The “riots” following the death of Mahsa Amini in Iran are experiencing their “last days”, an official from the Iranian Interior Ministry said on Saturday.
Posted at 1:38 p.m.
The Islamic Republic has been rocked by a protest movement since September 16, after the death of this 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, who died three days after her arrest in Tehran by the morality police who accused her of having broken the strict dress code of the Islamic Republic.
Dozens of people, mainly protesters but also members of the security forces, were killed during these demonstrations. Hundreds more, including women, have been arrested.
“There are a few gatherings at universities, with fewer and fewer people. The riots are in their final days,” said Deputy Interior Minister Majid Mirahmadi, quoted by the official Irna news agency.
“The situation in the provinces is good and we have no riots that lead to urban violence,” he added.
“Zahedan’s problem is different,” he said, referring to the provincial capital of Sistan-Balochistan, one of Iran’s poorest regions.
Violence that occurred on September 30 in this city left dozens dead, including members of the police, with state media accusing “extremists” of being behind attacks on police stations.
However, an influential Sunni religious leader in Sistan-Baluchistan, Molavi Abdol Hamid, accused the security forces of having fired “at people gathered around a mosque”. For him, the population was angered by reports that a police chief had raped a teenage girl.
On Friday, hundreds of people took to the streets in Zahedan and shouted anti-authority slogans, according to videos posted on social media.
“Yesterday’s sermon [vendredi] of Molavi Abdol Hamid was provocative,” Tasnim agency quoted Mirahmadi as saying that “150 thugs attacked public property.”
Provincial police chief Ahmad Taheri spoke for his part of the arrest of 57 “rioters”, according to Irna.
Molavi Abdol Hamid estimated for his part that “the leaders of the country […] were all responsible” for the events in Zahedan, according to its website.