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ARAB AND WORLD

Wed 15 Mar 2023 9:02 pm - Jerusalem Time

Clashes in Iran as protests enter their fourth week

Paris - (AFP) - Protests over the death of Mahsa Amini have entered their fourth week despite a deadly security crackdown, with schoolgirls chanting slogans, workers striking and street clashes erupting across Iran on Saturday.


The death of the 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman on September 16th, three days after her arrest in Tehran at the hands of the morality police, who considered that she was not adhering to the rules of Islamic dress, sparked widespread public anger.


And Iran announced Friday that the investigation had concluded that Amini died as a result of the repercussions of a previous medical condition, and not as a result of "blows" to the head.


But the young woman's father, Amjad Amini, who claimed that his daughter was in good health before her arrest, rejected the result of the medical report in an interview with Iran International, a Persian-language TV channel based in London. He said, "I saw with my own eyes that blood was pouring from my ears and neck."


Activists and NGOs claimed that Amini suffered a head injury while in detention. The report of the Iranian Forensic Medicine Authority did not calm the streets in Iran, and outside the country, marches of solidarity with this protest also continued.


On Saturday, protests led by women continued, while conservative Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi stood to take a group photo with students at Al-Zahra University in Tehran on the occasion of the start of the new academic year.


Women were seen on the same university campus chanting "Death to the oppressor," according to the Oslo-based Human Rights Organization in Iran.


In the city of Saqiz, from which Amini originates, located in the province of Kurdistan (west), schoolgirls were heard chanting "Woman, life, freedom" while they marched in a street while waving their headscarves over their heads, according to video recordings that the "Henkaw" human rights group said were Recorded Saturday.


Videos circulated widely on Twitter of a man appearing to have been killed while driving his car in Sanandaj, while gunfire is heard in one of the recordings.


The provincial police chief, Ali Azadi, said the man was "killed by anti-revolutionary forces".


A widely circulated video showed angry men taking revenge on a member of the Basij militia in Sanandaj, surrounding him and severely beating him.


The cybersecurity and Internet governance monitoring organization "Netblocks" said that the Internet service was interrupted in Sanandaj, also noting that the national mobile phone network was disrupted.


Despite restrictions on internet service to hinder gathering attempts and prevent the spread of security crackdown images, demonstrators adopted new tactics to get their messages across.


"We are no longer afraid. We will fight," reads a huge banner hung on a bridge over the "Modarres" highway that passes through central Tehran, according to images circulated on the Internet and verified by AFP.


In another video, a man is shown changing the words of a large government banner that reads "The Police Serve the People" to "The Police are the Killers of the People."


According to the agency "ISNA" news, the presence of a heavy security deployment in the capital, Tehran, especially near universities. And she talked about the organization of "scattered and limited gatherings" in Tehran, "during which some demonstrators destroyed public property."


Hencaw, a Kurdish human rights organization based in Norway, stated that "large-scale strikes" were organized in Saqiz, Sanandaj and Diwandar in Kurdistan Province, in addition to Mahabad in West Azerbaijan Province.


It was reported that protests were organized in many neighborhoods of Tehran where bazaar shops were closed, as well as in Isfahan, Karaj, Shiraz, Tabriz and others.


"Videos from Tehran indicate that there are many protests, in every corner of the city, in small and large numbers," wrote US-based Iranian journalist Amad Mamaran on Twitter.


According to the Human Rights Organization in Iran, at least 95 demonstrators were killed in the security crackdown that fueled tensions between Iran and the West, while the official version speaks of about 60 deaths, including 12 policemen.


Raisi, a hardline conservative who in July called for the mobilization of all state institutions to impose the hijab, appealed for unity.


"Despite all the efforts of the haters, the strong and toiling people of the Islamic Republic of Iran will overcome the problems they face with unity and cohesion," he said Saturday, according to what was reported by the official website of the presidency.


The Iranian president also met on Saturday with the heads of the judicial and legislative authorities, according to the official IRNA news agency, and they stressed that "Iranian society needs cohesion and unity among all its components and all its segments, and rejects division raised by enemies against the Islamic Republic."


And a local media outlet quoted a municipal official as saying that the scenes published Friday of fountains in Tehran whose water turned into the color of blood after an artist dyed it red to form a reflection of the crackdown were false and that "there was no change in the color" of its water.


Iran has repeatedly accused foreign powers of sparking the protests and last week announced the arrest of nine foreigners from countries including France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands.


On Friday, the French government advised its citizens visiting Iran to "leave as soon as possible," citing the risk of arbitrary arrest.


Likewise, the Dutch government has advised its citizens to avoid traveling to the Islamic Republic and to leave when it is safe to do so.


"There may be demonstrations in many cities of the country that could take a violent turn. The demonstrations are increasing," it said in a statement.


"The police sometimes act harshly and arbitrarily... Iranian authorities may also arrest people with foreign nationalities," she added.


In turn, the British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was detained in Tehran for six years until her release in March, called on the British government to respond to human rights violations in Iran.


"I want (the British government) to watch what is happening and not turn a blind eye," she told Sky News. "I want them to protect us. We cannot be careless about what is happening in Iran."


"If we talk about protecting the rights of our citizens, we have to do something about it. I think we have to hold Iran accountable," she added.


On the other hand, the Human Rights Organization in Iran quoted the non-governmental organization "Baluchi Activists Campaign" as saying that 90 people were killed in the suppression of demonstrations last week in Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchestan Province (southeast of the country), which has nothing to do with the death of Mahsa Amini. According to NGOs, the protests erupted after accusations that a police officer raped a teenage girl.

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Clashes in Iran as protests enter their fourth week

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