Iran’s security forces were deployed at universities in several cities on Wednesday, stepping up government efforts to quell more than two weeks of protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman arrested for not wearing a veil.
The troops were scattered in Urmia, Tabriz, Rasht and the capital Tehran, mainly around universities, which have been the main sites of protests in recent days, witnesses said.
A student in the capital said he was afraid to leave the Tehran University campus and said there were many police vans outside waiting to arrest students.
Human rights groups count thousands of prisoners, at least 150 dead and hundreds injured in the repression in recent weeks. The country’s security forces are supported by the Basij, a volunteer militia affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
On Wednesday, videos shared on social media showed high school students in Tehran removing their headscarves and chanting “death to Khamenei”, Iran’s supreme leader. The act of removing the veil is a tribute to the dead young woman – Amini, 22, was arrested by Iran’s moral police for not wearing her headscarf properly, an obligation of the country’s Muslim women.
In another video popular on social media, said to have taken place at a school in Shiraz on Tuesday, about 50 schoolgirls surround a member of the Basij militia who had been invited to deliver a speech at the scene shouting “Basij, get out of here!” and “death to Khamenei”. The authenticity of the video could not be confirmed by media outlets.
Different layers of Iranian society have joined the protests since Amini died after being detained in Tehran on 13 September for “inappropriate attire”. The demonstrations have become the biggest challenge for Iran’s clerics in years, with activists calling for the overthrow of the regime founded in 1979.
The protests have gained international repercussion and have received waves of solidarity. This Wednesday, French actresses Marion Cotillard, Juliette Binoche and Isabelle Huppert released a video in which they appear to cut strands of their hair.
“For freedom,” says Binoche, as she cuts a large handful of hair off her head with scissors and then shows it to the camera. The video won the hashtag HairForFreedom (hair for freedom).
The death of a 17-year-old girl since the protests began has become another focal point of protesters’ anger, with activists on Twitter saying Nika Shakarami lost her life in Tehran while protesting Amini’s death.
State media said on Wednesday that the government had opened a court case over Shakarami’s death. The report cites officials claiming that the girl’s death had nothing to do with the protests, that she had fallen from a roof and her body did not contain gunshot wounds.
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