‘Beginning of the end’: Iran activists call for new protests

Outrage over the 22-year-old’s death on September 16 has fueled the biggest wave of street protests and violence the country has seen in years, three days after he was arrested by Iran’s notorious morality police.

young lady They have been at the front lines of protests, raising anti-government slogans, removing their headscarves and confronting security forces on the streets.

At least 108 people have been killed in Amini protests, and at least 93 more in separate clashes in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan’s southeastern province, according to the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights. .

The unrest continues despite what Amnesty International called “relentlessly brutal crackdowns”, including “all-round attacks on child protesters” – which killed at least 23 minors.

There were few reports of people taking to the streets over Amini’s death on Friday, but online videos verified by AFP showed hundreds of men protesting after weekly prayers in Zahedan.

Despite internet services and access to platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp being blocked, activists on Saturday called for “the beginning of the end!” issued an online appeal for the protest under the slogan of

He has called on people across Iran to come to places where security forces are not present and to raise slogans of “death to the dictator”.

“We have to be present in the squares, because the best VPN these days is the street,” he declared, referring to the virtual private networks used to circumvent internet restrictions.

In response, a IranThe Islamic Development Coordination Council, the Islamic Development Coordination Council, has called on people to join a counter-demonstration after evening prayers on Saturday to “express their revolutionary anger against treason and rioters”.

international condemnation

The bloody crackdown has attracted international condemnation and new sanctions on Iran from Britain, Canada and the United States.

supreme leader of iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei The enemies of the country have been accused of instigating ‘riots’.

On Friday, his government condemned French President Emmanuel Macron for remarks that expressed solidarity with the protests over Amini’s death.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said Macron’s remarks served to encourage “violent people and law breakers”.

He said it was “astonishing” that France was condemning Iran’s security forces for its handling of “violent people and rioters” when it threatened to use force in response to “labor attacks in the oil and gas sector” at the home. was giving.

“This is clear hypocrisy,” he said.

Guard ‘retired’ gets call-up

Analysts say the multi-faceted nature of the Amini protests has complicated the state’s efforts to suppress them, which could pose an even bigger challenge for officials than the sudden fuel price hike compared to the 2019 demonstrations.

Young women and schoolgirls have been seen holding flash-mob protests to avoid detection, as seen in video footage posted online.

The approach reportedly forced the security personnel to move around a lot and tire them out, as the protest is set to extend into another month.

This week, a call went out for “retirees” of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to be assembled on Saturday, according to a reporter for the Sharagh newspaper, given the “current sensitive situation”.

In response to the protests, security forces launched a campaign of mass arrests, which took hold of youth activists, journalists, students and even minors.

School children have been arrested inside classrooms and ended up in “psychological centres”, Education Minister Yousef Nouri said this week, Sharg was quoted as saying.

In a rare display of accountability, the Tehran Police Department said on Friday it would investigate an officer’s conduct following allegations of harassment during the arrest of a woman protesting Amini’s death.

It came after a video showed a male officer groping from behind while arresting the woman, before she was finally let go.

Some voices of support for the protesters have also come from inside the country.

In an open letter published on its front page on Thursday, the reformist newspaper Etemad called on Iran’s top security official Ali Shamkhani to prevent arrests under “false pretense that are sometimes false”.

Iranian officials have organized their own rallies in which women attend in black sheets, head and body coverings.

To show that they had the support of famous women overnight, a photo montage of dozens wearing hijabs disappeared from a Tehran billboard within 24 hours of it showing some personalities protesting headscarves. was known for

This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed.