AFP / UGC
News from the NOS•
Hundreds of people will have to appear in court in the Iranian capital Tehran this week for playing a central role in the anti-regime protests, authorities say.
About 1,000 protesters are involved, Iranian state news agency Irna reported. They are accused of “subversive actions” such as arson and assaulting security guards. Protesters have also been accused in other provinces in recent times, but never before has the group been so numerous.
With the mass accusation, the Iranian regime hopes to put an end to protests in the country, which have been going on for more than six weeks and appear to be growing despite previous warnings from the authorities.
wave of protest
The demonstrations resulted in the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested in mid-September on suspicion of not adhering to Iran’s strict Islamic dress code. A few days after her arrest, the Kurdish-Iranian woman died, according to eyewitnesses, because she had been mistreated by police officers during her arrest.
The Iranian authorities contradict this reading, but have not been able to prevent a wave of protest from erupting in Iran following Amini’s death. It is the largest popular protest against the rigid Islamic regime in years.
NOS op 3 explains why the Iranian protests are unique:
This time everything is different. The Iranian protests explained.
Riot police crack down on protesters. At least 270 people have been killed since the protests began, an Iranian human rights group said. About 14,000 protesters are said to have been arrested.
Last weekend, the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the country’s most powerful military organization, urged protesters stop with their manifestations. “Today is the day the riots are over,” she warned on Saturday. “This rebellion will end badly for you.”
The threat from the Revolutionary Guards did not stop the Iranians from taking to the streets. Protests against the regime broke out across the country yesterday. The protesters shouted, among other things, “Death to Khamenei”, referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme cleric of Iran and thus the supreme leader.
Clashes broke out in universities between protesting students and riot police, aided by members of the Iranian paramilitary group Basij.
Unverified images on social media show Iranian security forces using tear gas and beating protesters with sticks, international news agencies report. A member of a Basij unit in Tehran is also said to have fired at students demonstrating at close range.
Even today, students in Iran protest against the regime, as here at the Technical Amirkabir University in Tehran:
