Seven dead after ongoing unrest in Iran – Politics

At least seven people have been killed in Iran since Tuesday as protests ramped up across the country, sparking a fresh wave of arrests by militias. The news agency reports Bloomberg.

According to the report, most of the fatalities were in the western Kurdish region of the country. It was the scene of the worst unrest since protests following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman arrested for allegedly flouting Islamic dress codes, who died in police custody on September 16 this year.

According to the human rights organization Hengaw Four men were killed by security forces in the Kurdish cities of Sanandaj, Bukan and Kamyaran. Two officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were also killed in Kurdish cities, one in Kamyaran and the other in Bukan, according to the state news agency Nour News and the semi-official news agency More reported. A cleric working for the Basij, a plainclothes Islamic militia, was also killed after being hit by a Molotov cocktail in the southern city of Shiraz, the state agency reports Islamic Republic New Agencywithout saying where she got the information from or citing a source.

At least 15,000 people have been arrested so far

According to the Oslo-based organization Iran Human Rights At least 326 people, including 43 children, have been killed in connection with the riots since the protests began more than two months ago. At least 15,000 people have been arrested and the Iranian judiciary has already formally sentenced two unarmed protesters to death.

However, strikes and protests continued Wednesday, affecting Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, once seen as a pillar of the clerical establishment, as well as the cities of Isfahan, Mahabad, Yazd, Bukan, Ahvaz, Kermanshah, Babol and Khorramabad. On the same day, the authorities announced another series of arrests, claiming that many of those arrested had links to Islamic State or French intelligence services. Eleven people were arrested on charges of being paid by foreign spy agencies to keep shops closed in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar during the strikes.

Negative pressure

The country’s Islamist rulers and security apparatus are under increasing pressure, both domestically and diplomatically, in the face of the largest popular uprising since the 1979 revolution. Widespread international condemnation of their violent response to the protests and support for Russia’s war on Ukraine has prompted a series of new sanctions from the US, Canada, the European Union and the UK.