The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards told protesters that Saturday (29) will be the last day of street protests, a sign that the country’s security forces can step up their crackdown on the acts.
“Don’t come to the streets. Today is the last day of the riots,” said Guard Commander Hossein Salami.
Iran has seen intense protests since the death of young Mahsa Amini in September. Amini, who was originally from Iranian Kurdistan and was visiting Tehran, was taken to the police station by the moral police for allegedly not wearing the Islamic headscarf as dictated by the country’s strict dress code.
The young woman left there unconscious and died three days later. The family says she was beaten and slipped into a coma. Activists claim that the police approach in such cases uses violence against women.
Tehran denies the allegations and alleges that the young woman suffered cardiac arrest.
Since then, human rights groups say at least 250 people have been killed in protests and thousands more have been arrested. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Friday (28) that Iran refuses to release the bodies of some of the protesters.
This week, on the 40th day of Amini’s death, the traditional period of mourning in Iran, about 10,000 people gathered at the young woman’s memorial to pay their respects and faced fire from security forces.
According to the Norwegian-based human rights group Hengaw, other episodes of violence were seen on Saturday.
The organization says security forces shot at students at a girls’ school in the western city of Saqez and opened fire on students at the Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences in the capital of the Kurdish province of Sanandaj, also in the region. west of the country.
On Friday, a UN spokesperson urged Iranian officials that the country’s security forces avoid unnecessary or disproportionate use of force against protesters.
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