PARIS —
Iran has arrested more than 1,200
protesters, officials said Monday, in its lethal crackdown on 10 nights of
unrest driven by outrage over the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in
morality police custody.
اضافة اعلان
At least 41 people have been killed as Iran has
heavily deployed security forces against nationwide demonstrations sparked by
the death of Amini, 22, following her arrest for allegedly breaching Iran’s
strict rules on hijab headscarves and modest clothing.
Tensions grew between the Islamic republic and
Western nations as Germany summoned the Iranian ambassador, a day after the
European Union protested the “widespread and disproportionate use of force” and
Tehran called in the British and Norwegian envoys.
Protests flared again across Iran overnight as a
Tehran crowd shouted “death to the dictator”, calling for the end of the more
than three-decade rule of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 83, in footage
shared by Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR).
“Woman, Life, Freedom!” the crowds have chanted as
female protesters have defiantly thrown their hijabs into bonfires and blazing
rubbish dumpsters — a rallying cry that has been echoed at solidarity protests
worldwide, including in London and Paris at the weekend.
Iranian riot police in black body armor have beaten
protesters with truncheons in running street battles, and students have torn
down large pictures of the supreme leader and his predecessor Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, in recent video footage published by AFP.
In Iran’s biggest
protests in almost three years, security forces have used water cannons but
also fired birdshot and live rounds, according to rights groups, while
protesters have hurled rocks, torched police cars and set public buildings
ablaze.
The IHR rights group said Sunday at least 57
protesters have been killed.
The total number of officially reported arrests rose
above 1,200, according to state media reports citing various officials,
including about 450 in northern Mazandaran province, over 700 reported Saturday
in neighboring Gilan, and dozens in several other regions.
‘Police on duty 24 hours’
“Rioters have attacked
government buildings and damaged public property,” Mazandaran’s chief
prosecutor Mohammad Karimi told official news agency IRNA, charging that they
were steered by “foreign anti-revolutionary agents”.
Tehran police have been deployed “24 hours a day”
and many have not slept, said the Iranian judiciary chief, Gholamhossein
Mohseni Ejei, thanking exhausted officers and the capital’s police chief during
a visit to their headquarters Sunday, in a video posted by Mizan Online.
Ejei earlier stressed “the need for decisive action
without leniency” against the protest instigators. Several security officers
have been killed in the unrest, according to Iranian media.
But a powerful Shiite cleric long aligned with the
country’s ultra-conservative establishment urged authorities to take a softer
line.
“The leaders must listen to the demands of the
people, resolve their problems and show sensitivity to their rights,” said
Grand Ayatollah Hossein Nouri Hamedani on Sunday.
Despite sweeping internet restrictions, including
blocks on Instagram and WhatsApp, new videos shared widely on social media
showed protests Sunday night in Tehran and cities including Yazd, Isfahan, and
Bushehr on the Persian Gulf.
Norway-based Kurdish rights group Hengaw said a
protest was held in Amini’s hometown of Saqqez “despite a heavy military
presence”, and there were reports of a 10-year-old girl being shot and
hospitalized in the northern town of Bukan.
The Tasnim news agency published photos of about 20
“riot leaders”, including several women, taken in the holy shrine city of Qom,
and said the military and security forces were calling on citizens to “identify
them and inform the authorities”.
Other reports said that students at Tehran and
Al-Zahra Universities and the Sharif Institute have gone on strike and urged
professors to join them.
Tensions with West
The EU’s foreign policy
chief
Josep Borrell on Sunday slammed Iran for its “widespread and
disproportionate use of force against nonviolent protestors”.
He said the EU would “continue to consider all the
options at its disposal ... to address the killing of Mahsa Amini” and the
state response to the protests in Iran, a country already under punishing
sanctions over its nuclear program.
Germany on Monday said it had summoned the Iranian
ambassador over the crackdown on the protests, with a conversation set to “take
place this afternoon”, according to the foreign ministry.
Tehran, for its part, said Sunday it had summoned
Britain’s ambassador to protest what it called an “invitation to riots” by
London-based Farsi language media, and Norway’s envoy over the parliamentary
speaker’s “unconstructive comments” on the protests.
The US last week imposed sanctions against the morality
police, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday that his own
country would follow suit as part of a sanctions package “on dozens of
individuals and entities”.
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