Iran protests reignite at funerals and commemorations for those killed

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/27/iran-protests-mahsa-amini-memorial

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Protesters turn out in dozens of towns and appear to take control of largely Kurdish city of Mahabad

Protests against the Iranian government have suddenly regained momentum as funerals for those killed and a highly emotional commemoration of the movement have stretched security forces drawn into a further cycle of arrests and repression.

Dozens of towns were rocked by protests on Wednesday night as mainly young crowds used the cover of darkness to mark the 40th day since Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, died in police custody, sparking unprecedented unrest.

Official state news agencies focused on an unrelated attack that left as many as 15 people dead and 30 injured after three extremists fired at pilgrims inside the Shah Cheragh, or Emperor of the Night shrine, in Shiraz.

Protesters appeared to have taken control on Thursday of Mahabad, a heavily Kurdish city of about 200,000 people close to the border with Iraq.

The unrest boiled over when a 35-year-old Kurdish man named as Ismaeli Maludi was shot dead on Wednesday, reportedly by direct fire from government forces, according to Hengaw, a Norway-based group that monitors rights violations in Iran’s Kurdish regions. Another protester was shot in nearby Sanandaj.

After Maludi’s funeral on Thursday a crowd attacked a police station and the governor’s office chanting “death to the dictator” and “Kurdistan, the graveyard of fascists.” Grainy video appears to show the streets packed with protesters, a bank enveloped in smoke and the police station in flames.

Official news agencies said the protesters had smashed windows in banks, the tax office and the civil registry, but denied the police station had been seized. All market activity had stopped on Thursday as the protests continued. The official news agency, however, reported: “The city is completely calm, and life is normal and the fire and rescue services are busy cleaning the city after the fires in rubbish bins.”

Crowds also gathered at the burial site of Nika Shakarami, 16, who died on 20 September in Tehran. Officials said she had killed herself and had a history of depression. But video footage released by CNN appeared to support the claim that she may have been shot during the protests. The footage showed her hiding behind a car while fleeing the security forces and urging the driver: “Don’t move, don’t move.”

Nika’s aunt had urged crowds to come to her commemoration, but the security forces tried to block the roads.

Her family say the state buried her body without their permission in Vesian village in Khorramabad, the capital of Lorestan province. Chants of “Death to Khamenei” were heard at her memorial. Nika’s mother, Nasrin, said in a speech: “I will for ever be in agony for your sufferings, but I love you. When I see that pure seed of your thinking – freedom, courage and honour blossoms in the hearts of other loved ones, I am happy and grateful.”

Nasrin previously gave an interview to BBC Persian in which she said: “Like Nika, I have been against compulsory hijab since I was a child. But my generation was not brave enough to protest. People my age accepted years of suppression, intimidation and humiliation, but my daughter protested and she had every right to do so.”

Iranian human rights groups said there were unconfirmed reports that some members of Amini’s family were under house arrest, but Reuters was unable to verify the reports.

The protests have also taken on a more explicitly anti-clerical flavour.

Ayatollah Javadi Amoli, a leading conservative politician and scholar, called for the state to react. “We are not worried, but the officials should also wake up and stop the insolence, embezzlement, betrayal and banditry so that they do not threaten the country, or else these troubles will continue,” he said.

The reformist politician Mohammad-Javad Haghshenas accepted the groups of young people were sometimes small, but said the protests were “like an iceberg in the Arctic Ocean, 10% of which is visible, but the bulk of it, which forms its core, is underwater.

“Iranians have learned that protests should not be concentrated in a specific place or limited to a specific class. All academic levels and cultural, sports, artistic elites, celebrities, join this movement,” he said. “This process is irreversible. The issue of morality police, guidance patrol and some taboos has practically collapsed. If the government does not want to understand these realities, it will deal a serious blow to the country, to itself, to the people, and to the future of Iran.”

Iran is feeling the pressure and on Wednesday announced sanctions against eight institutions and 12 individuals based in the EU, claiming they were “supporting terrorist groups”, “inciting violence” and “provoking riots, violence and terrorist acts” in relation to the protests.

The blacklist includes the International Committee in Search of Justice, the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism, and the Persian versions of the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and Radio France Internationale.

European and French politicians and two individuals at the German tabloid newspaper Bild are also among those put under sanctions.

Referring to the terrorist attack on the Shia pilgrims at the shrine in Shiraz, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the assailants “will surely be punished” and called on Iranians to unite. “We all have a duty to deal with the enemy and its traitorous or ignorant agents,” he said.

Islamic State, which once posed a security threat across the Middle East, has claimed responsibility for previous violence in Iran, including two deadly attacks in 2017 that targeted parliament and the tomb of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.