This week’s protests coincided with the commemorations of 2019’s “Bloody November,” when more than 300 protesters were killed in Iran’s crackdown on protests fueled by fuel price hikes, according to Amnesty.
Authorities appeared to be struggling to contain the wave of protests sparked on September 16 by the death in custody of 22-year-old Iranian Kurddin Mahza Amini, who was arrested by morality police for defying the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code.
On Thursday, security forces killed one protester in Boukan and two others in Sanandaj, where citizens traditionally marked the 40th anniversary of the deaths of their four victims in the crackdown, according to Iran-based defense NGO Henga Kurdistan. , is in Norway.
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“Death to the dictator,” protesters chanted in Sanandaj, referring to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, according to a video posted online. According to a video released by Henga and verified by AFP, they heard gunshots and fires burning in the streets.
In the same city, a police colonel was stabbed to death on Thursday and another, stabbed the day before, died, the official IRNA agency reported. In Mashhad (northeast), two paramilitary soldiers were stabbed to death as they tried to intervene against “rioters threatening merchants to force them to close.”
“Weapons Phase”
In Boukan, “rioters” destroyed public property, set fire to it and set fire to the municipality’s headquarters, before police arrived, Irna said.
According to Henga, strikes were seen in four cities in western Iran, where security forces said Henga killed ten protesters on Wednesday. Among these cities, Chakes is the birthplace of Mahsa Amini in Kurdistan.
It is feared that the regime will become “even more violent after two months” to end the protests, researches Saeed Golkar, a professor at the American University of Tennessee in Chattanooga.
At least 340 people were killed
At least 342 people were killed in the crackdown on the protest movement that began on September 16, according to a report established Wednesday by Iran Human Rights (IHR), an Oslo-based NGO.
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Ten people were killed in two automatic weapons attacks by unidentified men on Wednesday, which could not be linked to the ongoing protest movement.
In Izeh (southwest), seven people, including a woman and two children, were killed by “terrorists” who opened fire on demonstrators and police, according to officials. But a relative of one of the slain children accused security forces of carrying out the attack, according to Radio Farda, a U.S.-funded Persian-language radio station based in Prague.
Also in Isfahan (center), two unidentified men on a motorcycle killed a police officer and two paramilitary soldiers, according to Iranian media.
According to an Iranian press agency close to the Fars authorities, the unclaimed attacks marked “the beginning of armed action by those who want to destabilize the country after the failure of strikes and riots.” .
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“These actions are carried out with the intention of provoking a civil war,” he added, adding that “a large amount of weapons” smuggled into Iran had been discovered in recent weeks.
“The Great Conspiracy”
Officials call the protests “riots” and accuse Western countries of encouraging them.
Since Sunday, Iran’s judiciary has sentenced five people to death in connection with the “riots.” Amnesty International condemned the “appalling use of the death penalty to suppress popular uprisings with increased brutality”.
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abollahian on Thursday accused Israel and Western intelligence of “planning” a civil war in Iran. General Hossein Salami, head of Iran’s ideological army, the Revolutionary Guards, accused the US, UK, Germany, France, Israel, Saudi Arabia and their allies of “a massive conspiracy against the nation of Iran”.
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