DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (Washington Insider Magazine)– The streets of a west Iranian city pulsated with the sound of purported explosions and gunfire early on Monday following the death of the 22-year old Mhasa Amini. Activists said the security personnel killed one individual in a neighboring community.
The incidents occur as protests over Mahsa Amini’s death on September 16 while under the morality police’s custody in Tehran flare across Iran, reported ABC NEWS.
The Iranian government claims that Amini was not harmed, but according to her family, her body exhibited marks of violence, including bruises. Later recordings showed security personnel pushing and beating female demonstrators, including some who had removed their hijabs, the mandatory headscarves.
Online footage has appeared from Tehran and other places despite internet disruptions by the government. As the protests entered their fourth week, footage showed some women walking through the streets without hijabs, while others challenged police and set fire to the streets. Since the Green Movement protests in 2009, the protests are one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s theocracy.
A Kurdish organization named the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights stated, the violence occurred early on Monday in Sanandaj, the regional capital of Iran’s Kurdistan region, as well as in the town of Salas Babajani close to the Iraqi border. Since Amini was Kurdish, her passing was felt most strongly in Iran’s Kurdish area, where protests got underway on September 17 at her burial.
A video posted by Hengaw showed smoke emerging in one of Sanandaj’s neighborhoods and what seemed to be rapid rifle fire ringing over the night sky. People could be heard shouting.
The severity of any injuries caused by the incident was not immediately known. Later, Hengaw uploaded a video on the internet showing what seemed to be a collection of shotgun and rifle round casings as well as used tear gas canisters.
Authorities have not yet provided an explanation for the early-morning violence in Sanandaj, which is located approximately 250 miles (400 kilometers) west of Tehran. The semi-official Fars news agency said on Monday that the governor of the Kurdistan province of Iran, Esmail Zarei Kousha, claimed without any proof that unidentified organizations plotted to murder young people on the streets on Saturday.
Kousha also raised accusations that these unidentified groups had killed a young man by shooting him in the head that day – the attack has been directly blamed on Iranian security personnel by activists. They claim that the man honked his vehicle horn toward Iranian security forces, who then allegedly opened fire. In other footage, riot police can be seen shattering the windshields of passing cars with activists honking, which has been one of the tactics activists have been demonstrating civil disobedience.
Hengaw said a 22-year-old man who was protesting was shot many times by the Iranian security forces in the village of Salas Babajani, around 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Sanandaj. The victim eventually died from his wounds. It stated that many people had been hurt in the incident.
The precise number of fatalities from the protests and the state security crackdown on them are yet unknown. At least 41 civilians had reportedly died in the protests as of September 24 according to state television’s most recent report. Since then, the Iranian government has not provided any updates.
Iran Human Rights, an Oslo-based group, estimates that at least 185 individuals have died. This includes about 90 people that were killed in riots in the city of Zahedan in eastern Iran.A prosecutor reporte, during this time, a prison riot claimed the lives of numerous prisoners in Rasht. Although Rasht has had frequent protests in recent weeks following Amini’s death, it was unclear initially whether the incident at Lakan Prison was connected to the continuing protests.
