Opposition to the country’s regime triggered by Mahsa Amini’s death continues despite repression
New protests erupted in Iran on Sunday at universities and in the predominantly Kurdish northwest, fueling a seven-week anti-regime even in the face of fierce repression.
The protests, sparked in mid-September by the death of Mahsa Amini following her arrest for allegedly violating strict dress rules for women, pose the biggest challenge to devout leaders since the 1979 revolution.
Unlike the November 2019 protests, they took positions across the country, across all social classes, universities, streets and even schools, showing no signs of slowing down even as the death toll approaches 200, according to a human rights group.
Another Norway-based rights group, Hengaw, said security forces opened fire on Sunday during a protest in Marivan, a city in Kurdistan province, wounding 35 people. It was not easy to determine the number of victims without delay.
The latest protest was sparked by the death in Tehran of a Kurdish student from Marivan, Nasrin Ghadri, who Hengaw said died Saturday after being hit in the head by police. The Iranian government has not yet commented on the cause of his death.
Hengaw said she was buried at dawn without a funeral rite at the insistence of the government, which feared the occasion would be a flashpoint of protest. Authorities later sent reinforcements to the area, he added.
Kurdish-populated regions have been the crucible of protests since the death of Amini, herself Kurdish from the city of Saqez in Kurdistan province.
Universities have also become the main sources of protest. Human Rights Iran (IHR), a Norway-based organization, said academics at Tehran’s Sharif University were staging sit-ins on Sunday against their arrested colleagues.
Meanwhile, students at Babol University in northern Iran have shed gender segregation barriers erected by law in their cafeterias, he added.
The protests were supported through a myriad of other tactics, and observers noticed a new trend of young people returning clerics’ turbans to the streets.
IHR said on Saturday that at least 186 other people were killed in the crackdown on Mahsa Amini protests, 10 more than on Wednesday.
He said another 118 people had been killed in separate protests since Sept. 30 in Sistan and Balochistan, a predominantly Sunni Muslim province in the southeast, presenting a new headache for the regime.
IHR said security forces killed at least 16 other people with live ammunition when protests erupted after Friday prayers in the city of Khash in Sistan and Balochistan.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International said up to 10 other people were reportedly killed in Friday’s violence in Khash, accusing security forces of shooting protesters from rooftops.
“Iranians continue to take to the streets and are more determined than ever to bring about basic change,” said IHR Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. “The reaction of the Islamic Republic is more violence. “
The crackdown on protests has also overshadowed efforts to revive the 2015 deal on Iran’s nuclear program and intensified attention on Tehran’s ties with Russia, adding its source to Moscow of drones used in the war against Ukraine.
The protests were fueled by fury over restrictive dress rules for women, for which Amini had been arrested. But they now have a broad movement opposed to the theocracy that has ruled Iran since the fall of the shah.
Meanwhile, Sunnis in Sistan and Balochistan, where the alleged rape of a woman in police custody sparked protests, have long felt discriminated against through the country’s Shiite leaders.
IHR also warned that “dozens” of arrested protesters had been charged with alleged crimes for which they could be sentenced to death, compared to only a handful in the past who were reported to face this fate.
In addition to thousands of citizens, the crackdown has resulted in the arrest of prominent activists, journalists and artists such as influential rapper Toomaj Salehi.
Considerations are also being developed for the well-being of Wall Street Journal contributor and free speech activist Hossein Ronaghi, who was arrested in September and whose circle of family members says they are on hunger strike in Evin prison.
In a new blow, his father, Ahmad, is now under intensive care after suffering an attack at the center while leading an outdoor vigil, Evin, Hossein Ronaghi’s brother Hassan, wrote on Twitter.