Rallies are being held in dozens of cities around the world on Saturday in solidarity with the protest movement in Iran sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini arrested by vice police.
Protests in Iran, whose repression has killed at least 83 people, began after the death on September 16 of this Iranian Kurd, three days after her arrest for violating Iran’s strict dress code which in particular obliges women to wear the Islamic veil.
The power, which denies any involvement of the police in the death of the 22-year-old young woman, arrested hundreds of demonstrators, described as “rioters”.
Solidarity demonstrations, in which the Iranian diaspora participates, are being held on Saturday in more than 150 cities around the world, according to the organizers.
“The Violence of Tyrants”
In Rome, a thousand people marched to the rhythm of the drums. “We demand justice for Mahsa Amini and all the victims of the brutal and indiscriminate violence of the authorities,” said a participant, Simona Viola, leader of the small centrist party + Europa, quoted by the AGI agency.
In Tokyo, protesters held up signs reading “We’ll not stop” and pictures of women burning their veils or cutting their hair in Iran.
For the fifteenth consecutive night of demonstrations, Iranians came out on Friday evening as in the city of Saqez, in the Iranian province of Kurdistan, where Mahsa Amini is from, according to images released by the NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), based in Oslo.
“Women, life, freedom”, launched men and women in the middle of the street, taking up a flagship slogan of the protest movement.
Since the beginning of the demonstrations, NGOs have denounced the repression of the police and a wave of arrests.
According to the Iranian news agency Farsaround 60 people have been killed since September 16, while Iran Human Rights reported at least 83 dead.
An official tally reported the arrest of more than 1,200 demonstrators. Activists, lawyers and journalists were also arrested, according to NGOs.
Former Iranian Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, now in opposition, urged the police to stop the violence, in a message posted on the Instagram account of the Kaleme site which is close to him.
“I would like to remind all law enforcement of their oath to protect our land, Iran, and the lives, property, and rights of the people,” said the former official who is under house arrest. .
“The blood of the oppressed is stronger than the violence of tyrants,” he added.
On social media, the 1500tasvir channel shared a video showing major protests at universities in Tehran, Mashhad (north) and Kermanshah (northwest). Many riot police had taken up positions earlier Saturday at various crossroads in the capital, witnesses said.
Amnesty International has denounced the “ruthless” violence used by the security forces against the protest movement, noting the use of live ammunition and lead pellets, beatings and sexual violence against women.
The authorities accuse the demonstrators of sowing “chaos” and forces abroad, including the United States, their sworn enemy, of being behind the rallies or of stirring them up.
Arrest of foreigners
On Friday, they announced the arrest of “nine nationals from Germany, Poland, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, etc”. According to Tehran, they were arrested “at the scene of the riots or were involved in them”. The Dutch Foreign Ministry said on Saturday it had asked Tehran for access to an arrested Dutch national.
Abroad, opposition media broadcast images of the rallies, such as Iran International, a Persian-language television channel based in London, which posted several videos on Friday that AFP could not immediately authenticate.
According to one of them, men came under fire as they threw stones at a police station in Zahedan, capital of the province of Sistan-Baluchistan (southeast).
The police chief of Sistan-Balochistan told state television that three police stations in the province had been attacked. The Tasnim news agency reported on Saturday that the Sunni rebel group of Jaish al-Adl claimed responsibility for the attack on a police station.
The regional governor, Hossein Khiabani, told him on Friday on state television that 19 people, including a colonel of the Revolutionary Guards, the Iranian ideological army, had been killed in “incidents” in this same province. The Guardians reported the death of another colonel on Saturday.
It was not immediately clear whether the violence was linked to the protests.
These are the largest since those of November 2019, caused by the rise in gasoline prices, which had been severely suppressed.