Iran: Women’s anti-hijab protests spread to 50 cities, 10 killed, Internet curbed
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: For the first time after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has witnessed widespread anti-government protests—this time by women against veils—as several people died in police action over the last few days, the media reported on Thursday.
The women’s protests—marked by their chopping off hair and burning their hijabs (veils)—started last Friday after the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, who was detained by the morality police for allegedly ‘violating the dress code.’
Her death in police custody fuelled protests for a fifth day on Thursday as the government clamped fresh restrictions on social media and the Internet.
Iranian media and a Kurdish rights group reported rising death tolls on Wednesday. At least four people were killed in the last two days, bringing the total death toll according to official sources to eight, including a police officer and a pro-government militia member.
The demonstrations erupted over the death of the woman from Iranian Kurdistan who was arrested in Tehran for “unsuitable attire”.
The protests, which were concentrated in Iran’s Kurdish-populated north-western regions and later spread to at least 50 cities and towns nationwide, are the largest since a wave of demonstrations in 2019 over gasoline price rises when nearly 1,500 people were killed.
Reports from Kurdish rights group Hengaw said 10 protesters were killed on Wednesday, including seven by security forces.
But officials denied security forces killed protesters, claiming they may have been shot by armed dissidents.
Amini’s death unleashed anger over issues including freedoms in the Islamic Republic and an economy reeling from sanctions. Women played a prominent role in the protests, waving and burning their veils, with some cutting their hair in public.
After her arrest, Mahsa fell into a coma in the custody of the morality police, who enforce strict rules in Iran requiring women to cover their hair and wear loose-fitting clothes in public. They buried her on Saturday, amid many women protesting.
Reacting to police claims Amini died for unknown reasons, her father said she had no health problems and that she suffered bruises to her legs in custody.
Sensing the implications for the Islamic Republic, a top aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei paid condolences to Amini’s family this week, promising to follow up on the case and saying her death pained Khamenei.
The Fars news agency, close to the elite Revolutionary Guards, carried videos accusing protesters of torching a mosque, an Islamic shrine, and buses, attacking a bank, and pulling off a woman’s veil.
Hengaw said they had injured over 450 people besides the 10 protesters it said had died mainly in the northwest.
Videos shared on social media have shown demonstrators damaging symbols of the Islamic Republic and confronting security forces. One showed a man scaling the facade of the town hall in the northern city of Sari and tearing down an image of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic after the 1979 revolution.
On Wednesday in Tehran, hundreds shouted slogans like “death to the dictator” at Tehran University, the reports added.
