DUBAI, Oct 30 (Reuters) – Weeks of protests in Iran ended after students who ignored an ultimatum by the Revolutionary Guard were met with tear gas, beatings and gunfire, as social media videos show. On Sunday, it entered a more violent phase.
Dozens of university confrontations have sparked threats of a tougher crackdown in the seventh week of demonstrations since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after being arrested by moral police for clothes deemed inappropriate .
Iranians from all walks of life continue to protest after Amini’s death.
What began as anger over Amini’s death on September 16 has evolved into one of the toughest challenges for the clerical ruler since the 1979 revolution, with some protesters turning to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali. demanded Khamenei’s death.
The commander-in-chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps told protesters that Saturday would be their last day on the streets, the toughest warning ever by Iranian authorities.
Nonetheless, social media videos, which Reuters could not confirm, showed confrontations between students and riot police and Basij forces at universities across Iran on Sunday.
A video shared by rights group HENGAW from a protest at Sanandaji’s Kurdistan University shows members of the Basij army firing guns at protesting students at a branch campus of Tehran’s Azad University. But I heard gunshots.
Videos from universities in several other cities also showed Bajji forces firing at students.
Across the country, security forces attempted to block students inside university buildings, fired tear gas and beat protesters with sticks. The seemingly unarmed students pushed back, chanting “Disgraceful Basij lost their way” and “Death to Khamenei.”
crackdown history
At least a dozen doctors, journalists and artists have been arrested since Saturday, social media reported.
Activist news agency HRANA said 283 protesters, including 44 minors, had died in the riots as of Saturday. Approximately 34 members of the security forces were also killed.
More than 14,000 people, including 253 students, were arrested in protests in 132 cities and towns and 122 universities, it said.
The Guards and their Basij units have suppressed opposition in the past. They said on Sunday that “agitators” were insulting them in colleges and on the streets, and warned they could use more force if the anti-government unrest continued.
Revolutionary Guard Brigadier General Mohammadreza Mahdavi of Khorasan-Junubi province was quoted by state news agency IRNA as saying, “So far, the Basij have shown restraint and have been patient.”
“But if this situation continues, it will get out of our hands.”
Journalist Appeal
More than 300 Iranian journalists demanded the release of two colleagues jailed for reporting on Amini in a statement released by Iran’s Etemad and other newspapers on Sunday.
Niloofar Hamedi took a picture of Amini’s parents hugging at a hospital in Tehran while their daughter was in a coma.
The image, posted by Hamedi on Twitter, was the first signal to the world that all was not well with Amini, who had been detained three days earlier by Iranian moral police for being deemed inappropriately dressed.
Elahe Mohammadi covered Amini’s funeral in the Kurdish hometown of Saqez, where the protests began. A joint statement released by Iran’s intelligence ministry and the Intelligence Service of the Revolutionary Guard Corps on Friday accused Hamdi and Mohammadi of being foreign operatives of the CIA.
The arrests are consistent with the official account that Iran’s archenemy US, Israel and other Western powers and their local agents are behind the unrest and determined to destabilize the country. .
At least 40 journalists have been detained in the past six weeks, according to human rights groups, and the number continues to rise.
Amidst crowds calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic, which came to power in 1979, students and women have burned their veils and played key roles in the turmoil.
Officials said Sunday that the facility had no plans to withdraw the mandatory veil but should be “wise” about the enforcement.
“Removing the veil is against our law and this headquarters will not back down from its position,” said Ali Kammohamadi, spokesman for the Iranian Virtue Promotion and Prevention of Virtue Headquarters Habaron Line. told the website.
“But our actions must be wise so as not to give the enemy an excuse to use it against us.”
An obvious hint of compromise is unlikely to appease protesters, and most of their demands have moved beyond changing the dress code to calling for the abolition of clergy rules.
In a further apparent attempt to defuse the situation, the Speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Baker Khalibah, said that people were right to ask for change and that their demands would be met if we distanced ourselves from the “criminals” on the streets. said it would be satisfied.
“We believe that protests are the right thing to do and are the cause of progress, but these social movements, if they are separated from violent people, criminals and separatists, will be more politically and politically viable. I believe we will change the decision,” he said. Usually used for protesters.
Written by Michael Georgy.Edited by Nick McPhee, Philippa Fletcher and Angus Maxwan
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