CNN
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Fierce clashes broke out between security forces and student protesters on university campuses across Iran on Sunday, according to domestic activists and human rights groups.
Despite warnings from the country’s Revolutionary Guard chief Hossein Salami that Saturday was the last day of protests, students continued mass protests at several of the country’s major universities.
In a video obtained by CNN via reform activist outlet Iran Wire, two uniformed police officers can be seen appearing to arrest the protesters. The video is said to have been filmed at the Sanandaj Institute of Technology in northwestern Iran.
In the capital Tehran, activist groups claimed clashes broke out between protesters, members of the Basij militia and plainclothes police officers from Azad University, but CNN has not independently determined whether those who took part in the clashes were security forces. could not be confirmed.
Weeks of protests erupted in the Islamic Republic after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on September 16 after being detained by the “morality police” and taken to a “re-education center.” The country’s conservative dress code.
A video posted by the activist group 1500 tasvir shows a crowd of protesters with sticks. Tear gas appears to be thrown at the crowd, but it’s unclear who threw it.
In another video obtained by CNN through Iranwire, a reformist activist outlet, students from the University of Tehran, another university in the capital, can be seen marching and chanting: It’s time to be angry. ”
State news agency IRNA reported that students and professors at the University of Tehran held a “massive rally.” This is in response to recent events in the southern city of Shiraz on Wednesday and a terrorist attack on a temple of ‘Shahcheragh’.
Also in Sanandaj, gunshots were heard in a video posted by the Kurdish rights group Hengaw, said to have been recorded near Kurdistan University.
Activist group 1500 Tasvir also posted a video on Sunday showing security forces outside the Sanandaj Technical College for Girls, another educational facility in the state.
The Iranian Human Rights Organization (IHRNGO), a Norway-based NGO, condemned in a statement on Sunday “an invasion of university campuses by armed plainclothes forces and a violent crackdown on peaceful student protests.”
“As nationwide protests continue, armed plainclothes forces of the Islamic Republic have invaded university campuses, violently repressed and arrested protesting students,” the IHRNGO said.
Mahmoud Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the IHRNGO and professor at the University of Oslo, called on “universities and academic institutions around the world to support the demands of their students and condemn the outrageous encroachment of university campuses by the Islamic Republican forces.” .
On Saturday, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard head Hossein Salami called on Iran’s youth in particular to stop protesting.
“Today is the last day of the riot. Please don’t come to the streets again. What do you want from this country?”
