Protesters to dozens of villages and appear to be taking control of the predominantly Kurdish city of Mahabad
Protests against the Iranian government continued with funerals for those killed and a highly emotional commemoration of the movement that dragged security forces into a new cycle of arrests and repression.
Dozens of villages were rocked by protests Wednesday night as most young crowds used the canopy of darkness to mark the 40th day since Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, died in police custody, causing unprecedented unrest.
Official state news agencies focused on an unrelated attack that left up to 15 dead and 30 wounded after 3 extremists shot at Shah Cheragh pilgrims, or the Shrine of the Emperor of the Night Emperor, in Shiraz.
Protesters appeared to have taken over Mahabad, a heavily Kurdish city of about 200,000 people near the border with Iraq, on Thursday.
The unrest intensified when a 35-year-old Kurd named Ismaeli Maludi was shot dead Wednesday by direct fire from government forces, according to Hengaw, a Norway-based organization that monitors human rights abuses in Iran’s Kurdish regions. Another protester was shot dead near Sanandaj.
After Maludi’s funeral on Thursday, a crowd attacked a police station and the governor’s office, shouting “death to the dictator” and “Kurdistan, the cemetery of the fascists. “A grainy video appears to show streets filled with protesters, a bank shrouded in smoke and the police station on fire.
State news agencies said protesters smashed bank windows, the tax workplace and civil registry but denied the police station had been taken. All market activity came to a halt on Thursday as protests continued. absolutely quiet, and life is general and the chimney and rescue are busy cleaning the city after the chimneys in the trash cans. “
Crowds also piled up at the burial place of 16-year-old Nika Shakarami, who died Sept. 20 in Tehran. Authorities said he killed himself and had a history of depression. He may have only been shot during the protests. Footage showed her hiding behind a car as she fled security forces and suggested to the driver: “Don’t move, don’t move. “
Nika’s aunt had suggested crowds come to her commemoration, but security forces tried to block roads.
His circle of relatives claims the state buried his frame without his permission in the village of Vesian in Khorramabad, the capital of Lorestan province. Chants of “Death to Khamenei” were heard at his memorial. Nika’s mother, Nasrin, said in a speech: “I will be in the throes of your suffering, but I love you. When I see this natural seed of your brain – freedom, courage and honor blossom in the hearts of others enjoyed, I am satisfied and grateful.
Nasrin in the past gave an interview to BBC Persian in which she said: “Like Nika, I have opposed the obligatory hijab since I was a child. But my generation didn’t have the courage to protest. People my age accepted years of repression. , intimidation and humiliation, but my daughter protested and had every right to do so.
Iranian human rights teams said there were unconfirmed reports that some members of Amini’s circle of relatives were under space arrest, but Reuters was unable to verify those reports.
The protests took a more explicitly anticlerical turn.
Ayatollah Javadi Amoli, a prominent conservative politician and academic, called on the state to respond. “We are not worried, but the culprits will also have to wake up and prevent insolence, embezzlement, betrayal and banditry so that they do not threaten the country, otherwise this unrest will continue,” he said.
Reformist politician Mohammad-Javad Haghshenas admitted that the youth teams were small, but said the protests were “like an iceberg in the Arctic Ocean, 10 percent of which is visible, but most of it, which constitutes its core, is underwater.
“Iranians have learned that protests deserve not to be concentrated in an express location or limited to an express class. All educational grades and cultural, sports, artistic elites, celebrities, are enrolled in this movement,” he said. “This procedure is irreversible. The factor of morality police, orientation patrol and certain taboos has still collapsed. If the government does not want to realize these realities, it will deal a severe blow to the country, to itself, to others and to the long term. from Iran
Iran is feeling the pressure and on Wednesday announced sanctions against 8 EU-based establishments and 12 people who “support terrorist groups”, “incite violence” and “provoke riots, violence and terrorist acts” in connection with the protests.
The blacklist of the International Committee in Search of Justice, the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism and the Persian versions of the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and Radio France International.
European and French politicians and two others from the German tabloid Bild are also among those sanctioned.
Referring to the terrorist attack on Shiite pilgrims at the Shiraz shrine, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the attackers “will be punished” and called on Iranians to unite. “We all have a duty to deal with the enemy and his treacherous or ignorant agents. “he said.
The Islamic State, once posing a security risk to the Middle East, has claimed responsibility for the previous violence in Iran, two fatal attacks in 2017 that targeted parliament and the tomb of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.