Hundreds of men demonstrated in the Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchistan on Friday, six weeks after dozens were killed in a crackdown on security forces by the region’s authorities, according to videos circulating online. groups.
Iranian security forces have killed more than 90 people when they opened fire on protesters who marched after Friday prayers Sept. 30 in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan on Iran’s southeastern border with Pakistan, according to the Iran-based Human Rights Organization. , Oslo.
It comes two weeks after protests erupted in Iran following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the vice police on charges of violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women.
While initially fueled by prevailing anger over the dress code applied to women, the demonstrations later evolved into a broader movement against the religious regime represented by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“Death to Khamenei,” chanted men leaving mosques in Zahedan after Friday prayers, according to a video released by the Human Rights Organization in Iran.
At least 304 people have been killed across Iran since protests over Amini’s death broke out on September 16, according to a human rights group in Norway.
It claims that about a third of these people were killed in Sistan-Baluchistan, including at least 92 people who died on September 30, which activists called “Bloody Friday”.
The latest demonstrations came a week after more than a dozen people were killed in a crackdown on security forces in Khash, another town in Sistan-Baluchistan.
Video footage posted on social media and verified by AFP showed demonstrations erupted again in Khash on Friday as dozens of police officers were seen heading towards protests in Iran-Shahr, another city in the same province.
Security forces were later seen firing tear gas at protesters on a street in Iran’s Shahr, according to a video posted by 1500 Imaging on the Internet.
Amnesty International reported that at least 18 protesters, bystanders and worshipers, including two children, were killed in a crackdown on “mostly peaceful” protests in Khash on 4 November.
The London-based organization said it had registered the names of at least 100 protesters killed by security forces in Sistan-Baluchistan since September 30, but added that the actual number was much higher.
He called on the international community to take “urgent action to prevent further killings of demonstrators in Sistan-Baluchistan province and the rest of Iran.”
“The UN Human Rights Council should help break this vicious cycle of systemic impunity by establishing an independent investigation and accountability mechanism to investigate crimes,” she added.
As a result of the mass arrests, 1,000 people have been charged so far, with activists saying many of them face the death penalty.
UN human rights experts raised the issue of the men on Friday, calling on Iranian authorities to “stop using the death penalty as a tool to quell protests.”
In turn, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian accused Western governments of “encouraging violence and teaching (protesters) how to make weapons and Molotov cocktails in Iran through social networks and the media.”
In a telephone conversation with UN Secretary General António Guterres, the Iranian minister criticized Western countries for convening a special session of the UN Human Rights Council to discuss Iran’s response to the recent wave of protests.
Abdollahian believed that such a meeting should be held for “a government that encourages violence and terrorism, not (Iran), a true defender of human rights, which has shown great restraint during the recent turmoil.”
Riot control police, the Revolutionary Guard and members of the Basij Guard paramilitaries (many in civilian clothes) participated in the security campaign.
But the Iranian army’s ground commander, Brigadier General Kiomars Haidari, said on Thursday that his troops were waiting for Khamenei’s order to intervene in the face of the demonstrations, stressing that the army’s refusal to intervene still should not be misinterpreted.
“If the revolutionary society has not reacted until today, it is because the Supreme Leader decided so,” he said. “But on the day when (the leadership) gives the order to deal with them (the demonstrators), they will have no place in our country,” he added.
Iranian authorities have launched a massive arrest campaign to crack down on protests against athletes, celebrities and journalists.
Activists have urged football fans attending the World Cup starting later this month to chant Amini’s name at the 22nd minute of every match played by the Iranian team, as she was 22 when she died.
“Help us honor the memory of Mahsa Amini and fight this brutal regime. They chanted Mahsa Amini in the 22nd minute of every World Cup match,” New York-based Iranian activist Masih Alinejad tweeted.
Iran will play England in the World Cup on November 21, Wales on November 25 and the United States on November 29.