Protests flared again in Iran on Saturday over the death of a woman in moral police custody, despite a crackdown by security forces that left at least 41 people dead, according to official figures.
Inside Iran, the main reformist party called for the repeal of the mandatory Islamic dress code that Mehsa Amini was accused of violating as protests over her death entered their ninth night.
Web monitor NetBlocks reported that Skype has now been restricted in Iran, as part of a crackdown on communications that has already targeted Instagram, WhatsApp and LinkedIn, the last accessible international platforms. Is.
Hundreds of angry protesters along with reformist activists and journalists have been arrested.
Twenty-two-year-old Amini was pronounced dead after spending three days in a coma after being arrested by Morality police.
State television said the death toll had risen to 41. It broadcast footage of “riots” on the streets in northern and western Tehran, as well as in “some provinces” and said they had set public and private property on fire.
The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights put the death toll at 54, excluding security personnel. It said that in many cases authorities had agreed to secret burials and returned the bodies to their families.
Most of the deaths occurred in the Caspian Sea provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran, the group said.
Waves of arrests have been reported, with the Gilan police chief announcing the arrest of “739 rioters, including 60 women” in that province alone.
According to videos posted on social media, protests erupted again on Saturday night in Rasht, the provincial capital of Gilan, as well as in different parts of Tehran.
Anti-riot police were deployed in large numbers in northern areas of Tehran after nightfall, witnesses told AFP.
A viral video, allegedly from Saturday evening, shows a woman swinging a scarf over her head while walking down the middle of a street in Tehran.
Security forces have also arrested reformist activists and journalists, with the US-based media watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) detaining 17 since the protests began, along with Sharif Mansoor.
Among them is Nilufar Hamidi of the reformist newspaper Shargh, who reported on Amini’s death.
Attacked the positions of the militia.
Elsewhere, Norway-based Kurdish rights group Hengao said protesters had “taken control” of parts of the town of Oshnaviya in West Azerbaijan province.
Iran’s judiciary said “rioters attacked three Basij bases in Oceania”, referring to the state-sanctioned Islamic militia. But he denied that security forces had lost control of the town.
Ultra-conservative President Ibrahim Raisi vowed to deal “decisively” with those behind the violence in a phone call with families of Basij militiamen killed in the northeastern city of Mashhad on Saturday.
His comments came after Amnesty International warned of “the risk of further bloodshed amid deliberately imposed internet blackouts”.
The London-based human rights group said evidence it collected from 20 cities “pointed to a horrific pattern of deliberate and unlawful direct fire by Iranian security forces at protesters”. .
Amini died on September 16 after being arrested by Iran’s morality police, which is responsible for enforcing the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women.
Activists said he suffered a head injury in detention, but this has not been confirmed by Iranian authorities, who have launched an investigation.
The main reformist group within Iran, the Union of Islamic Iran People’s Party, called for the repeal of the mandatory dress code and the abolition of the morality police.
The party, which is led by former aides to reformist ex-president Mohammad Khatami who oversaw a rapprochement with the West between 1997 and 2005, also called on the government to “allow peaceful protests” and in recent days I should release the detained persons.
‘No Kill’
Thousands took part in government-backed counter-rallies in defense of the dress code on Friday.
Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi insisted that Amini was not beaten. He said Iran was still investigating the cause of his death, adding: “We must wait for the final opinion of the medical examiner, which takes time”.
Amnesty rejected the Iranian probe and called on the world to take “meaningful action” against the bloody crackdown.
“UN member states must move beyond toothless rhetoric, listen to the cries for justice from victims and human rights defenders in Iran, and urgently But an independent UN investigative mechanism should be established.”
Iran has imposed strict restrictions on the use of the Internet to prevent the gathering of protesters and prevent images of the reaction from reaching the outside world.
The United States announced on Friday that it would ease export sanctions on Iran to help expand internet services to its people.
