Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman of Kurdish descent, died on September 16 while being held by the Iranian morality police after being detained for allegedly breaking Iran’s strict clothing code for women.
As demonstrations against Mahsa Amini’s death reached their third month, Iranian security agents shot at protesters in a Tehran metro station. They assaulted women who did not cover their heads as required.
Social media users posted videos of people fleeing the scene as police fired shots on a packed platform. Several people fell and were crushed. Additionally, police were seen marching into train carriages and striking women with batons.
On Tuesday, protest organizers announced three days of action to remember the “Bloody November” of 2019 where hundreds of people died protesting an increase in fuel prices.
In a video posted by the social media watchdog 1500tasvir, protesters could be seen yelling around a bonfire, “We’ll fight! We’ll die! Iran will be ours again!” on a Tehran street. In metro stations, protesters have also been heard yelling and torching headscarves.
Six people were reported dead in nighttime skirmishes around the country.
During the summer, when there was a crackdown on women’s clothing, metro stations and public transportation, which are frequently patrolled by police, were turned into locations of state aggression and monitoring of women.
The government intends to use face recognition software to target women captured on public transportation security cameras, according to a statement made by Mohammad Saleh Hashemi Golpayegani, the secretary of Iran’s head office for promoting virtue and trying to prevent vice.
On Wednesday, official media said that a market in the city of Izeh, in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, had been the scene of a terrorist assault that claimed at least five lives. Most of Khuzestan’s ethnic Arab minority have joined the demonstrations brought on by Amini’s passing.
According to a local official, Valiollah Hayati, “Five individuals were murdered in the terrorist attack, including one kid, one mother, and three adults.”
The semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that anti-government protestors set fire to a seminary school in Izeh. Social media videos showed the burning structure and the sound of gunfire.
The Oslo-based organization, Iran Human Rights (IHR), reported that during two months of protests, security forces have murdered over 300 people. The organization asserts that 15,000 individuals have been detained; the Iranian government disputes this number. To date, five demonstrators have received death sentences.
As a result of persistent calls from authorities to adopt a stricter stance against unrest, 272 of Iran’s 290 legislators agreed earlier this month to impose the death sentence for severe offenses against the state.
A false claim that all 15,000 detained people had received death sentences has been circulating on social media, even by well-known figures like Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada.
However, a potential wave of executions is a significant worry. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the head of the Norway-based organization Iran Human Rights, said in a statement on Monday that, “The international community must firmly warn the Islamic Republic of the implications of murdering protestors. European nations must take into account implications such as summoning their embassies and adopting tougher efficient employee rights action against state officials.”
