In a continuing show of terror and violence, Iran “morality police” are literally cracking down on people who they feel are not following the Islamic Republic’s rules, particularly women.
Since Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman of Kurdish descent, died on September 16 while being held by the Iranian morality police, for allegedly breaking Iran’s strict clothing code for women, there have been massive demonstrations in the country.
As demonstrations due to Mahsa Amini’s death reached their third month, Iranian security agents shot at protesters in a Tehran metro station and assaulted women who did not cover their heads.
Social media users posted videos of people running away from train platform as police fired live ammunition. Several people fell and were crushed. Additionally, police were seen marching into train cars and striking women with their batons.
On Tuesday, protest organizers announced three days of demonstrations to commemorate the “Bloody November” of 2019, in which hundreds of people died while protesting increases in fuel prices.
A video posted by the social media watchdog 1500tasvir, shows protesters yelling around a bonfire, “We’ll fight! We’ll die! Iran will be ours again!” on a Tehran street. In metro stations, protesters have also been seen and heard yelling and torching headscarves.
Six people were reported dead in nighttime confrontations with police around the country.
Last summer, there was a crackdown on women’s clothing, with police patrolling metro stations and public transportation.
The government plans to use face recognition software to target women captured on public transportation security cameras, according to a statement made by Mohammad Saleh Hashemi Golpayegani, the secretary of Iran’s head office for promoting virtue and trying to prevent vice.
On Wednesday, official press sources said that a market in the city of Izeh, in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, had been the site of a terrorist assault that claimed at least five lives. Many of Khuzestan’s ethnic Arab minority have joined the demonstrations following Amini’s death.
According to a local official, Valiollah Hayati, “Five individuals were murdered in the terrorist attack, including one kid, one mother, and three adults.”
The Tasnim news agency reported that anti-government protestors set fire to a seminary school in Izeh. Social media videos showed the burning structure and you can hear the sound of gunfire.
An Oslo-based organization, Iran Human Rights (IHR), reported that during two months of ongoing protests, security forces have murdered over 300 people. The organization claims that 15,000 individuals have been detained, but the Iranian government disputes this number. To date, it is reported that five demonstrators have received death sentences.
As a result of persistent calls from Iranian police to adopt a stricter stance against unrest in the country, 272 of Iran’s 290 lawmakers agreed earlier this month to impose the death sentence for severe offenses against the state.
A false claim has been spreading that all 15,000 detained people had received death sentences however the numbers are not that large.
A potential wave of executions is a significant worry, however, according to Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the head of the Norway-based organization Iran Human Rights. He said in a statement on Monday that, “The international community must firmly warn the Islamic Republic of the implications of murdering protestors. European nations must take into account implications such as summoning their embassies and adopting tougher efficient employee rights action against state officials.”
