‘Not afraid anymore’: violence flares as Iran protests enter fourth week

Anger flared after the 22-year-old Iranian Kurd’s dying on September 16, three days after her arrest in Tehran by the infamous morality police for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic’s strict gown code for girls.

However the women-led protests continued whilst ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi posed for a gaggle {photograph} with college students at Tehran’s all-female Al-Zahra College to mark the brand new tutorial yr.

In Amini’s hometown Saqez, in Kurdistan province, schoolgirls chanted “Lady, life, freedom” and marched down a avenue swinging headscarves within the air, in movies the Hengaw rights group mentioned have been recorded on Saturday.

The province’s police chief, Ali Azadi, mentioned he was “killed by anti-revolutionary forces”.

One other surprising video exhibits a younger lady mentioned to have been shot useless in Mashhad, in what many on social media in comparison with footage of Neda Agha Soltan, a younger lady who turned a permanent image of the opposition after being shot useless at protests in 2009.

Regardless of web restrictions designed to impede gatherings and cease photographs of the crackdown getting out, protesters have adopted new ways to get their message throughout.

In different footage, a person is seen altering the wording of a giant authorities billboard on the identical freeway from “The police are the servants of the individuals” to “The police are the murderers of the individuals”.

Road protests have been additionally reported in lots of neighbourhoods of Tehran — the place bazaar outlets have been shuttered — in addition to in Isfahan, Karaj, Shiraz and Tabriz, amongst different cities.

Raisi — who in July known as for the mobilisation of all state establishments to implement hijab guidelines — appealed for unity.

Native media quoted a municipal official as saying footage printed Friday of fountains in Tehran showing to pour blood, after an artist turned the water purple to mirror the crackdown, have been false and there was “no change in color”.

Iran has repeatedly accused outdoors forces of stirring up the protests, and final week introduced that 9 overseas nationals — together with from France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands — had been arrested.

The Netherlands suggested its residents to keep away from travelling to Iran or to depart once they can achieve this safely.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian charity employee who was held in Tehran for six years till her launch in March, known as on the UK authorities to behave over Iran’s rights abuses.

“And if we discuss defending rights of our residents, we’ve to do one thing about it. And I believe we’ve to carry Iran accountable.”

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Initially printed as ‘Not afraid anymore’: violence flares as Iran protests enter fourth week