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DUBAI, Oct 30 (Reuters) – Protests in Iran entered a extra violent part on Sunday as college students, who defied an ultimatum by the Revolutionary Guards and a warning from the president, have been met with tear gasoline and gunfire from safety forces, social media movies confirmed.
The confrontations at dozens of universities prompted the specter of a more durable crackdown in a seventh week of demonstrations sparked by the demise of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was arrested by the morality police for apparel deemed inappropriate.
“Safety is the pink line of the Islamic Republic, and we is not going to permit the enemy to implement in any means its plans to undermine this priceless nationwide asset,” hardline President Ebrahim Raisi mentioned, in line with state media.
Iranians from all walks of life have taken to the streets since Amini’s demise in protests that the clerical rulers mentioned have been endangering the Islamic Republic’s safety.
Authorities have accused Islamic Iran’s arch-enemies america and Israel and their native brokers of being behind the unrest to destabilise the nation.
What started as outrage over Amini’s demise on Sept. 16 has developed into one of many hardest challenges to clerical rulers for the reason that 1979 revolution, with some protesters calling for the demise of Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The highest commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards advised protesters that Saturday can be their final day of taking to the streets, the harshest warning but by Iranian authorities.
However, movies on social media, unverifiable by Reuters, confirmed confrontations between college students and riot police and Basij forces on Sunday at universities throughout Iran.
One video confirmed a member of Basij forces firing a gun at shut vary at college students protesting at a department of Azad College in Tehran. Gunshots have been additionally heard in a video shared by rights group HENGAW from protests on the College of Kurdistan in Sanandaj.
Movies from universities in another cities additionally confirmed Basij forces opening fireplace at college students.
Throughout the nation, safety forces tried to dam college students inside college buildings, firing tear gasoline and beating protesters with sticks. The scholars, who seemed to be unarmed, pushed again, with some chanting “dishonoured Basij get misplaced” and “Loss of life to Khamenei”.
HISTORY OF CRACKDOWNS
Social media reported arrests of a minimum of a dozen medical doctors, journalists and artists since Saturday. The activist HRANA information company mentioned 283 protesters had been killed within the unrest as of Saturday together with 44 minors. Some 34 members of the safety forces have been additionally killed.
Greater than 14,000 folks have been arrested, together with 253 college students, in protests in 132 cities and cities, and 122 universities, it mentioned.
The Guards and its affiliated Basij pressure have crushed dissent previously. They mentioned on Sunday, “seditionists” have been insulting them at universities and within the streets, and warned they might use extra pressure if the anti-government unrest continued.
“To this point, Basijis have proven restraint and so they have been affected person,” the pinnacle of the Revolutionary Guards within the Khorasan Junubi province, Brigadier Common Mohammadreza Mahdavi, was quoted as saying by state information company IRNA.
“However it should get out of our management if the state of affairs continues.”
JOURNALISTS APPEAL
Greater than 300 Iranian journalists demanded the discharge of two colleagues jailed for his or her protection of Amini in an announcement revealed by the Iranian Etemad and different newspapers on Sunday.
Niloofar Hamedi took a photograph of Amini’s dad and mom hugging one another in a Tehran hospital the place their daughter was mendacity in a coma.
The picture, which Hamedi posted on Twitter, was the primary sign to the world that each one was not effectively with Amini, who had been detained three days earlier by Iran’s morality police for what they deemed inappropriate costume.
Elaheh Mohammadi lined Amini’s funeral in her Kurdish hometown Saqez, the place the protests started. A joint assertion launched by Iran’s intelligence ministry and the intelligence organisation of the Revolutionary Guards on Friday had accused Hamedi and Mohammadi of being CIA international brokers.
College students and ladies have performed a outstanding function within the unrest, burning their veils as crowds name for the autumn of the Islamic Republic, which got here to energy in 1979.
An official mentioned on Sunday the institution had no plan to retreat from obligatory veiling however needs to be “clever” about enforcement.
“Eradicating the veil is towards our regulation and this headquarters is not going to retreat from its place,” Ali Khanmohammadi, the spokesman of Iran’s headquarters for Selling Advantage and Stopping Vice advised the Khabaronline web site.
“Nonetheless, our actions needs to be clever to keep away from giving enemies a pretext to make use of it towards us.”
In an additional obvious effort to defuse the state of affairs, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf mentioned folks have been proper to name for reform and their calls for can be met in the event that they distanced themselves from the “criminals” taking to the streets.
“We contemplate the protests to be not solely appropriate and the reason for progress, however we additionally imagine that these social actions will change insurance policies and choices, offered that they’re separated from violent folks, criminals and separatists,” he mentioned, utilizing phrases officers usually use for the protesters.
Writing by Michael Georgy and Parisa Hafezi; Enhancing by Nick Macfie, Philippa Fletcher, Angus MacSwan and Barbara Lewis
Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Belief Rules.
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