DUBAI, Oct 8 (Reuters) – Female students in Tehran chanted “get lost” as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited their college campus on Saturday and condemned protesters enraged by the dying of a younger lady in custody, activists mentioned.
Raisi addressed professors and students at Alzahra University in Tehran, reciting a poem that equated “rioters” with flies, as nationwide demonstrations entered a fourth week.
“They imagine they can achieve their evil goals in universities,” state TV reported. “Unbeknownst to them, our students and professors are alert and will not allow the enemy to realise their evil goals.”
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A video posted on Twitter by the activist 1500tasvir web site confirmed what it mentioned had been ladies students chanting “Raisi get lost” and “Mullahs get lost” as the president visited their campus.
An Iranian state coroner’s report denied that 22-year-old Mahsa Amini had died due to blows to the top and limbs whereas in morality police custody and linked her dying to pre-existing medical situations, state media mentioned on Friday.
Amini, an Iranian Kurd, was arrested in Tehran on Sept. 13 for sporting “inappropriate attire”, and died three days later.
Her dying has ignited nationwide demonstrations, marking the most important problem to Iran’s clerical leaders in years.
Women have eliminated their veils in defiance of the clerical institution whereas livid crowds known as for the downfall of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The authorities has described the protests as a plot by Iran’s enemies together with the United States, accusing armed dissidents – amongst others – of violence during which no less than 20 members of the safety forces have been reported killed.
Rights teams say greater than 185 individuals have been killed, a whole bunch injured and 1000’s arrested by safety forces confronting protests.
After a name for mass demonstrations on Saturday, safety forces shot at protesters and used tear gasoline within the Kurdish cities of Sanandaj and Saqez, in accordance to the Iranian human rights group Hengaw.
In Sanandaj, capital of the northwestern Kurdistan province, one man lay useless in his automobile whereas a lady screamed “shameless”, in accordance to Hengaw, which mentioned he had been shot by safety forces after he honked his horn as an indication of protest.
But a senior police official repeated the declare by safety forces that they didn’t use reside bullets and that the person had been killed by “counter-revolutionaries” (armed dissidents), the state information company IRNA reported.
A video shared on social media confirmed a younger lady mendacity unconscious on the bottom after she was apparently shot within the northeastern metropolis of Mashhad. Protesters gathered round her to assist.
The Norway-based group Iran Human Rights mentioned on its web site that no less than 185 individuals, together with no less than 19 kids, had been killed within the protests. The highest variety of killings occurred within the restive Sistan-Baluchistan province with half the recorded deaths, it mentioned.
CALL FOR UNITY
After a weekly assembly, President Raisi and Iran’s head of judiciary and parliament speaker known as for unity.
“Currently, the Iranian society needs the unity of all its strata regardless of language, religion and ethnicity to overcome the hostility and division spread by anti-Iranians,” they mentioned in a press release carried by state media.
A social media video confirmed protesters marching within the northern metropolis of Babol and a number of other posts mentioned safety forces had surrounded students demonstrating on a college campus.
Hengaw additionally carried a video of emergency personnel making an attempt to resuscitate an individual and mentioned one protester had died after being shot within the stomach by safety forces in Sanandaj. Reuters couldn’t confirm the video.
One of the faculties in Saqez metropolis’s sq. was stuffed with ladies chanting “woman, life, freedom”, Hengaw reported.
The broadly adopted 1500tasvir Twitter account additionally reported shootings at protesters within the two northwestern Kurdish cities.
A college pupil who was on his method to be part of protests in Tehran mentioned he was not afraid of being arrested and even killed.
“They can kill us, arrest us however we won’t stay silent anymore. Our classmates are in jail. How can we stay silent?” the scholar, who requested to stay nameless, instructed Reuters.
Iran’s semi-official information companies performed down the protests throughout the capital Tehran. The ISNA company reported “restricted” demonstrations in about 10 areas of town and mentioned many Bazaar merchants had shut their retailers for worry of harm brought on by the unrest, denying there was a strike.
Internet watchdog NetBlocks mentioned that the web had been reduce in Sanadaj once more amid protests in Kurdish areas within the northwest. The group mentioned on Friday that “web stays regionally disrupted throughout #Zahedan, Sistan and Baluchestan Province, #Iran, seven days after an escalation of violence and civilian killings by safety forces”.
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Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Writing by Michael Georgy
Editing by Ros Russell and Nick Macfie
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.