Anti-government protests and rallies in Iran have entered their fourth week, with further protests reported on Saturday October 8 and Sunday October 9 at several universities in Tehran and Kurdish-majority areas in the north of the country, where Mahsa was from. Amini.
The death of this 22-year-old young woman on September 16 after her arrest by the morality police for wearing an illegal veil was the spark that ignited the protest. Since then, daily rallies in almost all the provinces of the country, against religious dress regulations and more broadly against the theocratic regime, have been severely repressed.
The state television channel was also briefly hacked on Saturday, during the retransmission of a speech by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. A photograph of the Ayatollah surrounded by flames, appeared for about fifteen minutes with the sentences “Join us and rise up”, “The blood of our youth flows from your claws” as well as a song with the slogan of the Iranian youth uprising, “Woman, life, freedom”.
BREAKING: Islamic Republic’s state-owned TV network hacked during a Khamenei address and the message: “The blood of… https://t.co/7JjLX2D7pM
On Saturday, protests took place in the universities of Sharif and Azad, as well as in several neighborhoods and in the bazaar of Tehran, according to the Associated Press. The campus of Sharif, Iran’s most important scientific university, has been closed since violent incidents between students and police last weekend.
The cries of women echo this Saturday, October 8 on Shariati Street, in northeastern Tehran, where protesters sc… https://t.co/zn3GfUM6BL
A video of the demonstrations in Tehran on October 8, broadcast by a journalist from the Point.
“Police forces used tear gas to disperse crowds in dozens of places in Tehran”confirmed the official IRNA agency, without further details, but adding that the demonstrators “spelled slogans and set fire to and damaged public property, including a police station and garbage cans”. A member of the paramilitary militia bassidji was killed on Saturday “after being seriously injured in the head following an armed attack by a crowd”, reports IRNA.
“We are all waiting for something to happen, like a ticking time bomb”
The Iranian province of Kurdistan, where Mahsa Amini was from, continues to be one of the epicenters of the demonstrations for four weeks. According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Networka France-based NGO, rallies were held in the capital, Sanandaj, and the towns of Javanrud, Kamyaran, Bukan and Mahabad on Saturday, in which two people were killed and fifty-seven others arrested.
Sharo, a 35-year-old academic interviewed by the Associated Press, describes a situation “tense and volatile” in Sanandaj. “We are all waiting for something to happen, like a ticking time bomb”, she said by Telegram to the news agency, which reports a heavy police presence and a general strike that partially blocks the city. The official IRNA agency announced the death of a member of the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Iranian theocracy, in the streets of the city.
According to Iran Human Rights (IHR), an Oslo-based NGO, at least ninety-two protesters have been killed and hundreds more arrested since September 16. The last report given by the Iranian official media dates back to September 27, with a report “about sixty” of dead. As for the police, members of the Revolutionary Guards or the militia of the bassidji, the number of killed reaches fourteen, according to Tehran. The Iranian state has also put in place severe restrictions on internet access to control what it calls ” riots “including Instagram and WhatsApp blocks, as well as VPN monitoring.
Iranian president calls on students to be ‘vigilant’
While the protest continued in some universities in Tehran, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was Al-Zahra, Iran’s first all-female university, to deny any involvement of security forces in the death of Mahsa Amini. According to a statement from the Iranian presidency, he told the students:
“The enemy thought they could achieve their goals in the universities, ignoring the fact that our students and teachers are vigilant and will not allow the enemy’s false dreams to come true. »
According to a medical report made public on October 7 by the Iranian authorities, Mahsa Amini’s death in custody was linked to a brain disease and was not caused by beatings. Shortly after her death, her father assured the FARS agency that his daughter was “in perfect health”.
The Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, came out of silence on October 3 to say that, according to him, “These riots and insecurity are the work of the United States, the Zionist regime [Israël, selon le langage officiel de Téhéran], of their mercenaries and some traitorous Iranians who helped them from abroad”.