IRAN: Despite a harsh crackdown, new protests broke out in Iran on Sunday at universities and in the country’s predominantly Kurdish northwest, continuing a seven-week anti-regime movement.
The demonstrations, which were started by Mahsa Amini’s murder in mid-September after she was detained for allegedly breaking strict dress codes for women, have grown into the largest test for the clerical leadership since the 1979 revolution.
They have been widespread, across socioeconomic classes, universities, the streets, and even schools, unlike the protests in November 2019, and they don’t seem to be slowing down even as the death toll approaches 200, according to one rights group.
Thirty-five people were injured on Sunday when security forces opened fire during a protest in Marivan, a town in the Kurdistan province, according to Hengaw, a rights organization based in Norway. Verifying the toll was not possible right away.
Nasrin Ghadri, a Kurdish student from Marivan who died in Tehran on Saturday after allegedly being struck in the head by police, spurred the most recent demonstration. Iranian officials have not yet disclosed the cause of her death.
According to Hengaw, the authorities insisted that she be buried without a funeral service at daybreak because they were concerned that the incident may spark a protest. Authorities then reinforced the area, and it continued.
Since the passing of Amini, a Kurd from the town of Saqez in the Kurdistan province, protests have primarily taken place in areas with a large Kurdish population.
Universities have also been significant hotspots for protests. According to Iran Human Rights (IHR), a Norwegian organization, students at Tehran’s Sharif University staged sit-ins on Sunday to support jailed friends.
According to the report, students at the university in Babol, in northern Iran, removed the gender-segregation barriers that had been placed there by law in the cafeteria.
Numerous other strategies have been used to keep the protests going, and observers have seen a relatively recent trend of young people tipping off clerics’ turbans in the streets.
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