New Iran protests erupt in universities, Kurdish region

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(Photo: AFP)

PARIS — New protests erupted in Iran on Sunday at universities and in the largely Kurdish northwest, keeping a seven-week anti-government movement going even in the face of a fierce crackdown.اضافة اعلان

The protests, triggered in mid-September by the death of Mahsa Amini after she was arrested for allegedly breaching strict dress rules for women, have evolved into the biggest challenge for the clerical leadership since the 1979 revolution.

Unlike demonstrations in November 2019, they have been nationwide, spread across social classes, universities, the streets and even schools, showing no sign of letting up.

The Norway-based Hengaw rights group said security forces opened fire on Sunday at a protest in Marivan, a town in Kurdistan province, wounding 35 people.

It was not immediately possible to verify the toll.

The latest protest was sparked by the death in Tehran of a Kurdish student from Marivan, Nasrin Ghadri, who according to Hengaw died on Saturday after being beaten over the head by police.

Iranian authorities have not yet commented on the cause of her death.

Hengaw said she was buried at dawn without a funeral ceremony on the insistence of the authorities who feared the event could become a protest flashpoint.

Images posted on social media showed protesters threw stones at the official administration building and took down and burned the Islamic republic’s flag. Residents, including women without headscarves, marched through the streets.

Authorities sent reinforcements to the area and the sound of gunfire echoed around the city as night fell, Hengaw added.

‘Fundamental changes’

Kurdish-populated regions have been the crucible of protests since the death of Amini, herself a Kurd from the town of Saqez in Kurdistan province.

Universities have also emerged as major protest hotbeds. Iran Human Rights (IHR), a Norway-based organization, said students at Sharif University in Tehran were staging sit-ins Sunday in support of arrested colleagues.

Students at the university in Babol in northern Iran meanwhile removed gender segregation barriers that by law were erected in their cafeteria, it added.

The protests have been sustained by myriad different tactics, with observers noting a relatively new trend of young people tipping off clerics’ turbans in the streets.

IHR said Saturday that at least 186 people have been killed in the crackdown on the Mahsa Amini protests, up by 10 from Wednesday.

It said another 118 people had lost their lives in distinct protests since September 30 in Sistan-Baluchistan, a mainly Sunni Muslim province in the southeast, presenting a further major headache for the regime.

IHR said security forces killed at least 16 people with live bullets when protests erupted after prayers on Friday in the town of Khash in Sistan-Baluchistan.

“Iranians continue taking to the streets and are more determined than ever to bring fundamental changes,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. “The response from the Islamic republic is more violence.”

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