Sit-in of students, strike of workers… The protest movement continued Monday, October 10 in several regions of Iran despite the deadly repression of the demonstrations triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini nearly four weeks. After the United States and Canada, the United Kingdom announced sanctions on Monday against Iranian officials and against the morality police, accused of being responsible for the death of the young Iranian Kurd of 22 years.
According to images shared Monday by the Oslo-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), sit-ins were organized by students at Gilan University in the north of the country and at the girls’ school from Mahabad, also in the north, where schoolgirls took off their headscarves in protest. In Tehran, a large crowd gathered outside the Polytechnic University on Monday to denounce “poverty and corruption” in Iran, shouting “death to dictatorship”.
The Islamic Republic has been rocked by protests since the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, who died three days after she was arrested by vice police in Tehran for allegedly breaking the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women. women, including the wearing of the veil. The IHR has reported at least 95 deaths in the crackdown on protesters since September 16. According to a latest Iranian report, dozens of people died as well as 18 members of the security forces.
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Serial gatherings
On Sunday, students at Azad University in Tehran held up their hands covered in red paint to denounce the bloody repression of the protests, according to a video posted on Twitter and verified by Agence France-Presse. According to the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), rallies have taken place at other universities such as Amirkabir in Tehran.
The protest movement rallied workers in the industrial sector on Monday. Videos shared by Persian-language media based outside Iran show workers burning tires outside the Asalouyeh petrochemical plant in the southeast of the country. According to the IHR, other strikes were observed in factories in Abadan (west) and Kengan (south).
The authorities denounce the demonstrations as “riots” and accuse foreign countries of stoking them, in particular the United States, a sworn enemy of the Iranian regime. Iranian foreign affairs spokesman Nasser Kanani said on Monday that the government “must protect the security of the nation and citizens, and cannot stand idly by in the face of chaos and disorder”.
In Sanandaj, the provincial capital of Kurdistan (north-west), the region from which Mahsa Amini was from, the security forces used Sunday evening “heavy weapons”, accused the human rights NGO Hengaw. They “pounded” residential neighborhoods and used “machine guns” in this city, the scene of some of the largest protests, the NGO added, citing information that could not immediately be independently verified. .
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Medical report on Amini’s death disputed by family
Rallies in solidarity with the protest also continued abroad, such as Sunday in Paris. According to NGOs, journalists, activists and artists have been arrested by Iranian authorities since the beginning of the movement. Other personalities saw their passports briefly confiscated, like the legend of Iranian football Ali Daei, second top scorer in the history of the selections. On September 27, Ali Daei urged the authorities to “settle the problems of the Iranian people rather than resorting to repression, violence and arrests”. The passports of singer Homayoun Shajarian and his wife, actress Sahar Dolatshahi and filmmaker Mehran Modiri were also seized, according to Iranian news agency Ilna.
Iranian authorities said on Friday that Mahsa Amini died of illness and not of “beatings”, according to a medical report. The young woman’s father, Amjad Amini, dismissed the report, saying his daughter was in good health before her arrest. Activists and NGOs said she suffered a head injury sustained during her detention.
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Faced with the continued crackdown, the United Kingdom on Monday announced sanctions against the Iranian morality police and the regime’s political and security officials. These sanctions follow those already taken by the United States or Canada against senior officials of the Tehran regime. Jake Sullivan, top diplomatic adviser to US President Joe Biden, warned on Twitter on Monday “that the world is watching what is happening in Iran”. “Over the weekend, innocent protesters, including a young girl, were shot dead. The Iranian president compared the protesters to ‘flies,’” he wrote. In the European Union, the European Parliament called on Brussels to also impose sanctions. The question should be on the menu of the meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Twenty-Seven scheduled for October 17.
These protestors are Iranian citizens, led by women and girls, demanding dignity and basic rights. We stand with them, and we will hold responsible those using violence in a vain effort to silence their voices.
— Jake Sullivan (@JakeSullivan46) October 10, 2022