TEHRAN (Washington Insider Magazine)- The most persistent protests against a firmly established theocracy in years, stepped in the fourth week and exploded into anti-government demonstrations on Saturday in numerous places across the country. There were at least two fatalities.
In opposition to arbitrary religious clothing rules, marchers screamed anti-government chants and twirled headscarves. According to ABC NEWS, several businesses closed their doors in response to a call for a strike by protestors or to safeguard their goods from harm.
Later on Saturday, hackers managed to disrupt the evening news for 15 seconds just when a video of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the country, was being broadcast on state television of Iran. A picture of Khamenei engulfed in flames was flashed by the hackers. The caption, which made reference to Khamenei, read, “Join us and stand up!” and “The blood of our youth is dripping from your claws.”
In the backdrop, a song with the lyrics “Woman. Life. Freedom”—a popular shout of the protesters—played.
Riots broke out on September 17, following the burial of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman who had died while in custody of the dreaded morality police. Amini had been imprisoned for allegedly disregarding the stringent Islamic dress code for females. The protests since then, have spread across the nation and were faced with a harsh crackdown that is believed to have resulted in dozens of deaths and hundreds of arrests.
According to rights watchdogs, a man was shot and killed on Saturday while driving a car on a busy street in Sanandaj city in the Kurdish-majority northern region. The Hengaw Organization for Human Rights and the Kurdistan Human Rights Network said a man was shot dead after honking at security personnel posted on the street. One of the ways protestors have started expressing civil disobedience is via honking. A video floating online shows the dead man slumped over the steering wheel as startled bystanders shouted for help.
The police chief of Kurdistan denied firing live bullets against protestors, the semi-official Fars news agency, which is thought to be affiliated with the elite paramilitary group, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard reported.
Without going into detail, Fars stated that locals on Sanandaj’s Pasdaran Street believed the victim was shot from inside the vehicle. However, pictures reveal the dead man’s left side was wounded, which suggests that he was not likely shot from inside the car. Blood can be seen dripping inside on the driver’s side.
The security forces used gunshots to scatter crowds in the city, killing two protestors and injuring ten others, the rights watchdogs said.
Amidst a tight security perimeter, a general strike was witnessed in the city’s major streets. In some locations, protesters set tires on fire. Patrols in Sanandaj have prevented large gatherings, although solitary protests have persisted in the city’s highly populated areas.
On Saturday, there were also reports of protests in the Iranian capital of Tehran, including small ones near the Sharif University of Technology, one of Iran’s top universities and the site of a brutal government crackdown the previous weekend. The campus has been shut down by authorities till further notice.
Pictures on social media revealed that demonstrations also occurred in Mashhad, a city in the northeast.
Other demonstrations broke out in the city’s market, and other neighborhoods, including Azad University in northern Tehran. In central Tehran and close to the university, many stores were shut.
In a meeting with students from the all-female Al-Zahra University in Tehran, President Ebrahim Raisi once more claimed that foreign enemies were behind inciting the protests. He made the assertion without presenting any details or supporting evidence.
In the meantime, thousands of people participated in a solidarity march in The Hague, Netherlands, chanting and singing in support of the Iranian protesters.
