Iran has accused the United States and Israel of orchestrating the violent protests that have gripped the country after a lady was died in detention after being seized by the “morality police” for not wearing her scarf properly.
In spite of government efforts to quell the rioting, civil unrest is escalating across the nation for a third week.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, replied officially today to the largest rallies in Iran in years, breaking his weeks-long silence to accuse his adversaries.
Khamenei told a group of police students in Tehran that he was “heartbroken” by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody, describing it as a “tragic episode.”
However, he harshly criticized the rallies as a foreign effort to destabilize Iran, echoing earlier statements made by Iranian authorities.
Iran has accused the United States and Israel of orchestrating the violent demonstrations that have seized the country.
During a rally, pro-government activists burn British, Israeli, and United States flags.
Iranian students attempt to open the University of Isfahan’s entrance gate in the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Today, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei inspects the armed forces at a graduation ceremony for Armed Forces Officers’ Universities.
Amini was pronounced dead on September 16, days after the infamous morality police arrested the Kurdish Iranian for allegedly violating laws requiring women to wear the headscarf and modest clothing.
Khamenei stated, “These riots were planned.” These riots and insecurities were orchestrated by the United States and the Zionist authorities, as well as their employees.
The responsibility of our security forces, especially the police, is to protect the Iranian people.
Those who assault the police leave Iranians defenseless against thugs, thieves, and extortionists.
Security forces, including police and the volunteer Basij militia, have led a crackdown on the protesters, resulting in thousands of arrests and hundreds of injuries, according to human rights organisations, which estimate that over 130 people have been killed.
Several members of Iran’s security forces were reportedly slain during the turmoil, which has become the largest demonstration of resistance to Iran’s rulers in years, with many demanding for the end of more than four decades of Islamic clerical rule.
Following an hours-long confrontation between students and police that transformed the famous institution into the newest flashpoint of protests and resulted in the arrest of hundreds of young people, Iran’s top technical university was closed today.
People flee during skirmishes with riot police as students demonstrate in Tehran following the death of Mahsa Amini.
Iranian ladies walk in a Tehran street during the third week of violent protests today.
Sharif University of Technology in Tehran has announced that only PhD students will be permitted on campus till further notice, following hours of unrest on Sunday evening, during which antigovernment protestors and hardline pro-establishment students reportedly battled.
The protesters screamed “Woman, life, liberty” and “students choose death to disgrace,” according to Mehr news agency.
According to the report, Iran’s minister of science, Mohammad Ali Zolfigol, addressed the students in an effort to diffuse the situation.
Iran Human Rights, an NGO located in Oslo, produced recordings purporting to show police on motorbikes pursuing students running through an underground parking garage and removing captives with their heads covered in black fabric bags.
A mob can be heard yelling “Don’t be frightened!” in a clip that IHR claims was captured in a Tehran metro station. Don’t be frightened! We are all united!
Since officials reported the death earlier this month, public outrage has escalated.
People gather during a demonstration for Ms. Amini, who was purportedly imprisoned in Tehran for violating a tight dress code.
Mahsa Amini died in detention on September 16 after being arrested by Iranian morality police in Tehran.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock tweeted, “Hard to bear what’s happening at #SharifUniversity in #Iran.” “The Iranians’ bravery is outstanding.” And the regime’s brutality is an expression of its irrational dread of the power of education and liberty.
The witnesses, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation, stated that the police confined hundreds of students on the campus and used tear gas to suppress the rallies.
The student association of the institution reported that police and plainclothes personnel surrounded the school from all sides and detained at least 300 students during nighttime protests on campus.
The group alleged that plainclothes officers assaulted a professor and numerous university staff.
The state-run IRNA news agency attempted to minimize the deadly confrontation by claiming that a “protest gathering” occurred and concluded without any injuries.
Iran’s most recent protest movement, which has created some of the country’s most widespread turmoil in years, arose in response to the death of Amini, who was arrested for allegedly breaching the country’s stringent Islamic dress code.
This week in Tehran, a protester lifts his arms and makes the victory sign during a demonstration for Mahsa Amini.
However, it has become an open challenge to the Iranian government, with chants of “Death to the dictator” resounding through the streets and balconies at night.
The protests have tapped into a deep vein of Iranian complaints, including the country’s social limitations, political repression, and faltering economy, which has been choked by American sanctions for decades.
Protests have continued in Tehran and distant provinces, with women burning their state-mandated headscarves and crowds calling for the demise of the ruling clerics, despite the fact that authorities have restricted internet access to the outside world and disabled social media apps.
Khamenei described the scenes of demonstrators pulling off their hijabs and torching mosques, banks, and police cars as “not normal, not natural” in his speech on Monday.
According to rights groups and widely disseminated footage, security personnel have responded with tear gas, metal pellets, and in some cases live fire, although the breadth of the response remains unknown.
At least 1,500 arrests have been reported by local authorities, who have captured an unimaginable number of individuals.
Hundreds of artists and activists who have expressed support for the protests, as well as dozens of journalists, have been arrested by the expanding dragnet of security personnel.
Tens of thousands of people, including many women, have taken to the streets in more than a hundred Iranian cities and villages to protest her death and four decades of persecution.
The authorities arrested Alborz Nezami, a reporter for a Tehran-based economic publication, on Sunday.
Khamenei stated that individuals who incite discontent in order to’sabotage’ the nation merit stern prosecution and punishment.
He added that young people who “came to the streets in a state of enthusiasm after viewing something on the Internet” should be “disciplined.”
According to eyewitnesses, the majority of protestors appear to be under the age of 25; they are Iranians who have grown up with global isolation and severe Western sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program.
Talks to resuscitate the historic 2015 nuclear agreement have stagnated for months, increasing public frustration as the Iranian rial loses value and costs increase.
According to videos extensively posted on social media, as the new academic year began this week, students gathered in protest at campuses around Iran, screaming slogans against the government and condemning security forces’ crackdown on demonstrators.
Universities in Iran’s major cities, including Isfahan in the center of the country, Mashhad in the northeast, and Kermanshah in the west, have held demonstrations with chanting, clapping, and the burning of headscarves.
Students at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran’s capital yelled, “Don’t call it a protest, it’s a revolution now,” as women removed their hijabs and set them on fire in protest of Iran’s rule forcing women to cover their hair.
Crowds of students at the University of Mazandaran in the country’s north chanted, “Students are awake, they despise the leadership!”
Since at least 1999, when security forces and allies of extremist clerics killed students protesting media restrictions, the Islamic Republic has been concerned about the resurgence of student fury.
This wave of student demonstrations under former reformist president Mohammad Khatami sparked the bloodiest street fighting since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.