IBADAN, Nigeria (Voice of Naija) – At least 76 protesters have been killed by Iranian security forces during 11 days of unrest sparked by the death of a woman in custody, activists say.
Iran Human Rights (IHR), a monitoring group based in Oslo, Norway, said Monday at least 76 protesters have been killed by security forces so far.
According to IHR, in many cases, handing over the bodies of the victims to their families was made contingent on agreeing to secret burials.
“The risk of torture and ill-treatment of protesters is serious and the use of live ammunition against protesters is an international crime,” said IHR’s director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. “The world must defend the Iranian people’s demands for their fundamental rights.”
The anti-government demonstrations have spread to more than 80 cities and towns across Iran since the funeral of Mahsa Amini on 17 September.
The 22-year-old Kurdish woman from the north-western city of Saqez had been visiting the capital, Tehran, on 13 September when she was arrested by morality police officers for allegedly violating the strict law requiring women to cover their hair with a hijab, or headscarf.
She collapsed after being taken to a detention centre to be “educated” and died in hospital following three days in a coma.
The police said Ms Amini died after suffering sudden heart failure, but her family have dismissed that and alleged that she was beaten by officers.
On Tuesday, Iran Wire said at least 2,000 protesters have been arrested in Tehran alone over the past ten days.
The state broadcaster, IRIB, had reported a death toll of 41 until Monday but said this included both protesters and security forces.
Protesters took to the streets again across the country including in Tehran, Tabriz, Yazd, and Sanandaj in different neighborhoods Monday evening chanting slogans against the Islamic Republic, security forces, clerics, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and often clashing with security forces.
More videos have emerged of security forces brutally beating protesters. In one such video from Shiraz in southern Iran several anti-riot police are seen beating up a protester with batons.
On Monday, protests were reported in Tehran and a number of other cities, including Yazd, in the centre of the country, and Tabriz and Sanandaj, in the north-west.
Students and teachers at more than 20 universities also staged a strike and walked out of their classrooms.
In some neighborhoods of Tehran such as Ekbatan, a massive housing development with a middle class population of over 100,000 in the west of the capital with, residents have been displaying their support by shouting slogans from their windows after nightfall.
Chief Justice Gholamreza Mohseni-Ejei on Monday threatened celebrities who have supported the protests of retribution. Dozens of celebrity athletes and artists of every walk as well as some university professors have been expressing support for the protesters and announcing their departure from the national team, the state broadcaster, or their jobs.
“Get this into your heads, you murderers! We have lived on this land for thousands of years and seen what happened to Mongols [invaders]. We will stand on your graves, too! You can’t silence us!” Mohammad Khodabandehlou, a footballer with Sirjan Golgohar FC wrote on Instagram.
The local prosecutor’s office Monday impounded the luxury villa of soccer legend Ali Karimi, in Lavasan, a resort area only kilometers from Tehran, for his candid and continued display of solidarity with the protests immediately after they began.
Photos of the villa’s entrance were published on social media with signs saying the property had been sealed by judicial order “until further notice” but these were removed later without any explanation.
The Revolutionary Guard (IRGC)-linked Fars news agency had earlier accused Karimi, who is currently in the UAE, of being an “agitator” and “leader of rioters” and a hardliner former lawmaker, Hamid Rasaei, demanded confiscation of his properties in Iran.
Karimi, known as the ‘Asian Maradona’, who is followed by over 12 million on Instagram reacted by saying “A house has no value without the homeland”.
Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of Iran’s former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was arrested by security agents on Tuesday, Iranian state media reported.
Ms Hashemi is an outspoken critic of the Iranian establishment.
The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists demanded the release of at least 20 reporters and bloggers who had been detained, as well as human rights defenders, lawyers and civil society activists.
“Iranian security forces must drop their repressive measures against the journalists telling this critical story and restore the internet access that is vital to keep the public informed,” the CPJ said.
The BBC’s Kasra Naji says there are reports that the unrest has stretched the security forces to the limit, with the head of the judiciary seen in one video saying that riot police had been deployed “24 hours a day” and that “they did not sleep last night and the nights before”.
President Ebrahim Raisi has meanwhile spoken of the need to “take decisive action against opponents of the security and peace of the country”.