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Iranian college college students launched protests towards the nation’s rulers on Saturday, giving new momentum to the anti-regime protests which have been happening for 2 weeks regardless of an intensification of the Islamic republic’s crackdown.
As the brand new tutorial 12 months formally started, college students on the capital’s prestigious Tehran College and different demonstrators in close by streets chanted slogans whereas riot police patrolled on bikes, taking pictures tear gasoline and urging the group to disperse, eyewitnesses stated.
Universities in different main cities similar to Mashhad within the north-east, Tabriz within the north-west, Kerman within the south and Yazd in addition to Isfahan in central Iran, additionally held protests in response to movies posted on social media.
“The clergy ought to get misplaced,” chanted folks in central Tehran. “We don’t need the Islamic republic,” college students inside Tehran College stated.
“College students at universities are certainly giving the protests a brand new vitality because the youth can create synergies once they get collectively,” stated Saeed Laylaz, a reformist analyst. “This might imply protests will proceed for now.”
The wave of protests started in mid-September after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish girl from the northwestern city of Saqqez, died whereas within the custody of the morality police. She was detained in a park in Tehran for allegedly breaching the compulsory Islamic gown code.
Her tragic loss of life has rocked Iran, triggering the most important anti-regime protests since 2019, when an increase in gasoline costs precipitated unrest.
Officers have sought to persuade Iranians that her loss of life was in all probability brought on by underlying ailments relatively than punishment in detention.
Saturday’s escalation got here after a number of days when the protests subsided.
Some ladies protesters in Tehran walked across the college with out scarves, passing the riot police however displaying little concern. The semi-official Fars information company — which is affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards — stated some protesters in Tehran had been arrested.
Most of the demonstrators are younger and are available from the nation’s city center class; they don’t have any identified chief. Their foremost slogan has change into “Lady, Life, Freedom”. Younger ladies have burnt their scarves in protest on the hijab.
Javan each day newspaper, affiliated to the guards, stated 93 per cent of protesters had been aged as much as 25 years outdated “which reveals a brand new era of rioters within the nation within the making”.
A feminine protester stated she objected to a regime which “needs us to go to mosques however sends its personal kids to Canada to get pleasure from life”.
Iranian state tv stated final week that 41 folks died in the course of the protests, a determine which has not been up to date in current days. Amnesty Worldwide stated on Friday that Iran’s crackdown had precipitated not less than 52 deaths whereas a whole bunch had been injured.
A whole lot have been arrested, together with 9 overseas nationals whose identities haven’t been disclosed, home media have reported. Faezeh Hashemi, daughter of the late former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was additionally arrested final week.
Iran’s opposition chief Mir-Hossein Moussavi who has been below home arrest since 2011, stated in a message on Saturday that Amini’s loss of life “is popping historical past’s web page”. He urged the armed forces “to be on the nation’s aspect” and “defend folks, not suppress them”.
In the meantime tensions erupted within the south-eastern province of Sistan Balochistan on Friday and 19 folks, together with safety forces, had been killed, in response to the semi-official ISNA information company. The battle got here after a senior police official allegedly raped a 15-year-old ethnic Baluchi lady.
The province’s governor, Hossein Modarres Khiabani, accused “separatist terrorists” of attacking the police centre and a few banks and chain shops on Friday.
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