DUBAI, Oct 30 (Reuters) – Weeks of protest in Iran entered a more violent phase on Sunday as college students defied an ultimatum by the Revolutionary Guards and had been met with tear fuel, beatings and gunfire from riot police and militia, social media movies confirmed.
The confrontations at dozens of universities prompted a risk of a more durable crackdown within the seventh week of demonstrations since 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died after she was arrested by the morality police for apparel deemed inappropriate.
Iranians from all walks of life have been protesting since Amini’s dying.
What started as outrage over Amini’s dying on Sept. 16 has developed into one of many hardest challenges to clerical rulers because the 1979 revolution, with some protesters calling for the dying of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The prime commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards advised protesters that Saturday could be their final day of taking to the streets, the harshest warning but by Iranian authorities.
Nevertheless, movies on social media, unverifiable by Reuters, confirmed confrontations between college students and riot police and Basij forces on Sunday at universities throughout Iran.
One video confirmed a member of Basij forces firing a gun at shut vary at college students protesting at a department of Azad University in Tehran. Gunshots had been additionally heard in a video shared by rights group HENGAW from protests on the University of Kurdistan in Sanandaj.
Videos from universities in another cities additionally confirmed Basij forces opening hearth at college students.
Across the nation, safety forces tried to dam college students inside college buildings, firing tear fuel and beating protesters with sticks. The college students, who gave the impression to be unarmed, pushed again, with some chanting “dishonoured Basij get lost” and “Death to Khamenei”.
HISTORY OF CRACKDOWNS
Social media reported arrests of at the least a dozen medical doctors, journalists and artists since Saturday.
The activist HRANA information company stated 283 protesters had been killed within the unrest as of Saturday together with 44 minors. Some 34 members of the safety forces had been additionally killed.
More than 14,000 folks have been arrested, together with 253 college students, in protests in 132 cities and cities, and 122 universities, it stated.
The Guards and its affiliated Basij power have crushed dissent prior to now. They stated on Sunday, “seditionists” had been insulting them at universities and within the streets, and warned they could use more power if the anti-government unrest continued.
“So far, Basijis have shown restraint and they have been patient,” the pinnacle of the Revolutionary Guards within the Khorasan Junubi province, Brigadier General Mohammadreza Mahdavi, was quoted as saying by state information company IRNA.
“But it will get out of our control if the situation continues.”
JOURNALISTS APPEAL
More than 300 Iranian journalists demanded the discharge of two colleagues jailed for his or her protection of Amini in an announcement revealed by the Iranian Etemad and different newspapers on Sunday.
Niloofar Hamedi took a photograph of Amini’s dad and mom hugging one another in a Tehran hospital the place their daughter was mendacity in a coma.
The picture, which Hamedi posted on Twitter, was the primary sign to the world that each one was not nicely with Amini, who had been detained three days earlier by Iran’s morality police for what they deemed inappropriate gown.
Elaheh Mohammadi lined Amini’s funeral in her Kurdish hometown Saqez, the place the protests started. A joint assertion launched by Iran’s intelligence ministry and the intelligence organisation of the Revolutionary Guards on Friday had accused Hamedi and Mohammadi of being CIA international brokers.
The arrests match an official narrative that Iran’s arch-enemy the United States, Israel and different Western powers and their native brokers are behind the unrest and are decided to destabilise the nation.
At least 40 journalists have been detained prior to now six weeks, in response to rights teams, and the quantity is rising.
Students and girls have performed a outstanding position within the unrest, burning their veils as crowds name for the autumn of the Islamic Republic, which got here to energy in 1979.
An official stated on Sunday the institution had no plan to retreat from obligatory veiling however needs to be “wise” about enforcement.
“Removing the veil is against our law and this headquarters will not retreat from its position,” Ali Khanmohammadi, the spokesman of Iran’s headquarters for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice advised the Khabaronline web site.
“However, our actions should be wise to avoid giving enemies a pretext to use it against us.”
The obvious trace at compromise is unlikely to appease the protesters, most of whose calls for have moved past gown code modifications to requires an finish to clerical rule.
In an extra obvious bid to defuse the state of affairs, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf stated folks had been proper to name for change and their calls for could be met in the event that they distanced themselves from the “criminals” taking to the streets.
“We consider the protests to be not only correct and the cause of progress, but we also believe that these social movements will change policies and decisions, provided that they are separated from violent people, criminals and separatists,” he stated, utilizing phrases officers sometimes use for the protesters.
Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Nick Macfie, Philippa Fletcher and Angus MacSwan
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