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This Tuesday the protests continue in Iran, with at least 41 dead, according to the Iranian authorities, and 76 according to the NGO Iran Human Rights. Iranian women remain determined to fight for their rights and freedoms while the Executive applies more and more repression, with the United Nations confirming that the Iranian police and Army are using live ammunition against the protesters.
Already add 11 days. For more than a week and a half in which Iranian women decided to take to the streets to ask for one thing: that their rights be respected, after the death of the young Kurdish-Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, whom the “police of the morality” or Gasht-e Ershad was carried away for wearing the veil “badly” while visiting Tehran with her family.
He never returned with them again: he fell into a coma after an alleged collapse at the police station and died three days later. Although the police say they have no responsibility for his death, the protesters point directly to the institution.
An episode that has unleashed the anger of thousands of Iranian women, since the issue of wearing the veil – mandatory in public spaces for women who have passed puberty – has been at the center of the debate since the Islamic Revolution in the country.
Discontent and protests that have already resulted in the death of 41 people, according to the Iranian authorities, and 76 according to the NGO Iran Human Rights, based in Oslo. A number of deaths is expected to rise if the protests continue, as police are using live ammunition against protesters, a figure confirmed by the United Nations.
“Security forces have sometimes responded with live ammunition,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesman for the UN Human Rights Office, from Geneva.
In the city of Qorveh, on September 26, protesters shouted in chorus: “I will kill my brother’s killer!” A forceful response to the violent actions of the Iranian State, which has already arrested hundreds of journalists and activists, in addition to imposing restrictions on the Internet; the demonstrators suffer from censorship to prevent the dissemination of what is happening in the country at the international level.
“The arrest of four other lawyers in Iran means that the representation of the protesters is prohibited!” Said the lawyer Saeid Dehghan, specializing in Human Rights.
Relatives of the deceased denounce threats
The repression of these protests is unprecedented in the country. The families of the victims claim to have been forced to bury their dead at night, in silence and threatened with legal reprisals if they made the deaths public.
And it is that for 11 days, citizens in more than 80 towns have come out to protest. With a very special area within the protests: the two large provinces with a Kurdish majority, Western Azerbaijan and Kurdistan, where Amini was originally from.
There, thousands of women have taken to the streets to show solidarity with the young woman. Something that has generated fear in Tehran, since the relationship with the Kurdish territories since the Islamic Revolution -four decades ago- is delicate. Both Iranian and Iraqi Kurdistan have groups opposed to the Islamic government, which fears losing its control in the area with the uprisings.
“Your daughter is like my own daughter and I feel like this incident happened to one of my loved ones,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on social media on September 18.
But that did not satisfy the population and the situation seems to have gotten out of control for the Executive. Five days ago, during his speech at the UN General Assembly, Raisi said that expressions of discontent were “normal” but should not be confused with “hooliganism.” A statement that generated criticism.
And the truth is that many women in the area want to go far beyond the optional use of the veil, they want to conquer other rights, freedoms and opportunities. “The hijab is a symbolic thing that has put women on the front lines, but it connects them to all kinds of discrimination they face,” said Nazli Kamvari, an Iranian-Canadian feminist author, to the New York Times newspaper‘.
So far, the morality police have not reappeared on the streets of Tehran. But the flame of indignation brought about by Amini’s death does not seem to go out and Iranian women continue to bet on going out to claim their rights.
With EFE, Reuters and local media
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