Iranian authorities announced this Friday (30) the detention of European citizens in the context of protests triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who was detained by Tehran’s moral police for not properly wearing the Islamic headscarf.
Among the detainees, called troublemakers by the government, are citizens of Germany, Poland, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Sweden, according to the Interior Ministry, which also said they were detained in the places where the protests were taking place or when they were “planning in the backstage”. Their names were not released.
Since the beginning of the demonstrations, Iranian authorities have accused foreign forces, including the United States, of fueling the protests. According to Iran, Washington is using the demonstrations to try to destabilize the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, so Friday’s arrests should further increase tension between the Middle Eastern country and the West.
Crowds have been chanting slogans, calling for the overthrow of the regime and fighting security forces in the country’s 31 provinces, especially in major cities such as Tehran, Isfahan and Yazd, according to the Iran Wire information page of Iranian journalists abroad. These are the biggest protests in Iran since the 2019 protests against a gasoline price hike.
On Friday, gunmen opened fire on a police station in Zahedan (southwest), prompting security forces to fight back. Nineteen people were killed, including police, the provincial governor told state television. Twenty were injured.
In the southwestern city of Ahvaz, security forces fired tear gas to disperse the crowd, which chanted anti-government slogans, according to a video released by Iran International, a London-based Persian television.
An Iranian cleric called for tough action this Friday against protesters. “Our security is our distinctive privilege. The Iranian people demand the severest punishment for these barbaric rioters,” said Mohammad Javad Haj Ali Akbari, leader of the Friday prayers in Tehran.
According to Amnesty International, as of Friday, at least 52 have died as a result of the protests and hundreds have been injured. In addition, other human rights groups said dozens of activists, students and artists were detained. The Committee to Protect Journalists said on Twitter that it learned of the arrest of at least 28 journalists.
Amini, a 22-year-old from the Iranian Kurdish city of Saqez, was arrested this month by moral police in Tehran for wearing inappropriate attire — officers are responsible for enforcing the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women.
Police officers claimed that Amini suffered a heart attack after being detained and denied that she was assaulted. Activists, however, claim that the police approach in such cases has been violent, often with the use of beatings against women.
In Iran, after the 1979 Revolution, which gave way to a theocratic regime, the law began to state that women are obliged to cover their hair with a veil and wear baggy clothes to cover the shape of their bodies. Those who break the rule face public reprimands, fines and even imprisonment.
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