October 29, 2022, 18:43 PM
October 29, 2022, 18:43 PM
Iranian security forces They attacked a hospital and a university residence in the west of the country on Saturday morning, according to activists, as the protest movement in Iran enters its seventh week.
The Islamic Republic has been the scene of a wave of protests since September 16, following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who died three days after being arrested in Tehran by the morality police, who accused her of breaking the strict dress code in Iran.
To the initial motto of “Woman, Life, Liberty” were added, in harshly repressed demonstrations, slogans openly directed against the Islamic Republic founded in 1979.
“Death to the dictator”, shouted the protesters on Saturday at a ceremony marking the end of the traditional 40-day mourning of one of their own in Divandareh, Kurdistan province, where Mahsa Amini was originally from.
Mohsen Mohamadi, 28, died on September 19, after being shot by riot police the day before, during a demonstration in Divandareh, human rights groups specified. He passed away after arriving at the Kowsar hospital in Sanandaj, the capital of Iranian Kurdistan.
Friday night, security forces fired on dozens of protesters gathered in front of that hospital to “protect” a protester wounded, threatened with arrest by the authorities, highlighted the human rights group Hengaw on Twitter.
“Repressive forces opened fire on people gathered in front of Kowsar hospital to protect Ashkan Mrwati,” wrote the group, based in Norway.
“These forces are trying to stop Ashkan Mrwati, who is injured,” Hengaw added, posting a photo of the protester lying on a stretcher.
Demonstrations continue
According to the same source, the security forces “They then shot at a medical student residence” near Kowsar hospital.
A video posted online, verified by AFP, shows dozens of policemen arriving on motorcycles, and then opening fire against the residence of the Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences.
Several academics demonstrated on Saturday in different cities of Iran, including the capital Tehran, according to videos widely shared on social media.
According to Hengaw, the security forces shot at a student demonstration in Kermanshahclaiming that two were in critical condition.
For its part, the NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), based in Oslo, reported that the repression of the protests caused by the death of Mahsa Amini To date, it has caused at least 160 deaths, including some 20 children.
In addition, 93 people have died in demonstrations, called for another reason, in the city of Zahedan, province of Sistan Baluchistan (southeast). Those protests began on September 30, following the alleged rape of a young woman, allegedly committed by a police officer, according to IHR.
On Friday, the director of that NGO, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, urged the UN to “increase diplomatic pressure on Iran and to establish an investigation mechanism to judge those responsible” for the repression.
“The risk of a massacre is real and the United Nations must ensure that this does not happen,” he stressed.
PFor their part, Iranian leaders continued to point fingers at Iran’s “enemies.”
In a joint statement, the Intelligence Ministry and the Revolutionary Guards – Iran’s ideological army – on Friday accused the CIA, the US intelligence agency, and its “allies of Great Britain, Israel and Saudi Arabia” of “conspiring” against the Islamic Republic.
On Saturday, in Shiraz (south), during the funerals of the 15 victims of Wednesday’s attack claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group against a Shiite shrine, a crowd chanted slogans against “riots”alluding to the protests triggered after the death of Mahsa Amini.
