Iranian students have stepped up their protests in defiance of a crackdown by security forces, who allegedly cornered and shot several students at a prestigious Tehran university on Sunday night.
Anti-government protests sparked by the death of a young woman in police custody in mid-September have spread across the country in varying degrees of intensity, revealing a cultural gulf between Iran’s educated youth and a male-dominated religious establishment of advanced age
In his first remarks on the protests, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei strongly backed security forces and accused the US and Israel, the Islamic Republic’s arch-rivals, of orchestrating the unrest. “If there was no problem with the death of the young woman, they would have used another pretext to cause riots and riots at this time,” Khamenei said on Monday.
Britain’s Foreign Office summoned Iran’s top diplomat to London over the crackdown. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly described the violence against protesters as “truly shocking”.
“Today we made our view clear to the Iranian authorities: instead of blaming external actors for the unrest, they should take responsibility for their actions and listen to the concerns of their people,” he said.
Concern has grown over the latest violence at Tehran’s Sharif University of Technology where, local media reported, riot police clashed with hundreds of students, with officers using tear gas and paintball guns and carrying non-lethal steel shot guns. Many students were arrested and taken away in police cars or ambulances as parents and others came to their rescue.
“Woman, life, freedom,” the students shouted, as well as “students prefer death to humiliation,” Mehr news agency reported, adding that Iran’s Science Minister Mohammad Ali Zolfigol, came to talk to the students to try to calm the situation. .
The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights released a video that appeared to show Iranian police on motorcycles chasing students running through an underground parking lot and, in a separate clip, taking away detainees whose heads were covered with black cloth bags.
In other footage, which has not been independently verified, gunshots and screams can be heard as large numbers of people run down the street at night. In one clip, which IHR said was recorded at a metro station in Tehran, a crowd can be heard chanting: “Don’t be afraid! Do not be afraid! We are all in this together!”
In what appeared to have been a coordinated ambush on the students by plainclothes officers in an effort to make arrests, local witnesses said a dozen had been shot by a mix of plastic bullets and stun guns.
The Sharif University Islamic Association student union said in a statement on Monday that more than 30 people had been arrested and accused the security services of barbaric treatment, especially of women, and compared the mental state of the students, including some only on the second day. at university, to be in wartime.
The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran said it was “extremely concerned about the videos coming out today from Sharif University and Tehran showing the violent crackdown on protests and the detainees being transported with their heads completely covered in cloth.”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told army cadets in Tehran on Monday that the US and Israel were responsible for the protests. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Cyber attacks on the websites of government institutions, including the judiciary, continued on Monday as reports emerged of lawyers being arrested and detained. However, students returned in large numbers to Tehran and Isfahan. Despite efforts by Iranian authorities to prevent students from using social media to tell the world about the protests, images showed large crowds gathered.
“It is hard to bear what is happening at Sharif University in Iran,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock tweeted on Monday. “The courage of Iranians is incredible. And the regime’s brute force is an expression of sheer fear of the power of education and freedom.”
Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Jolly, also announced that she was imposing sanctions on 25 individuals and nine entities for human rights violations. Jolly said the continued persecution of Iranian women must stop.
Meenna, a university student, said: “We are going through the worst form of police violence. We will not tolerate their restrictions and we will not adhere to the regime’s strict dress code. These are our lives, and we have the right to choose.
“I have seen dead bodies on the streets and roads and we will not let their blood be wasted. The future of students under this regime is to target, commit violence and kill with ballads and direct fire; our future is bleak under this regime, we will fight them “.
Education union leaders called a national strike by teachers and students in response to Sunday’s violence.
Security forces and politicians appeared to believe they had public support for a crackdown, but risked antagonizing a fatalistic or cowed larger middle class. Many of the larger middle classes, educated by previous defeats by protesters and battered by economic sanctions, have held back from participating in the recent protests because they see no point in trying to force the government to change its mind.
A session of Iran’s parliament on Sunday showed little willingness to compromise on the mandatory hijab or the methods of Iran’s moral policing, the two main causes of the protests.
Instead, the focus was on the role of foreign media and agents, as well as Iranian celebrities, in allegedly fomenting the protests. Iran’s foreign ministry said it had sent serious warnings to some countries that were hosting “lie factories,” a reference to the widely watched media that broadcasts in Iran.
The protests began in response to the death in custody of 22-year-old Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly breaking strict dress codes.
A group of prisoners in Tehran’s Evin prison issued a statement of support for the students. “Our hearts, our cries and our fists are with the hearts and cries of the people at every moment,” they said.
Former footballers also continued to support the protesters, including Mehdi Mahdavikia, the Asian Footballer of the Year in 2003, who wrote on social media: “For several decades, suppressing students and beating them at every opportunity , you have nationalized Iranian elites. Capital is fleeing. Important positions are in the hands of illiterates.”
Ali Karimi, called up by the Iranian football team 127 times, has also supported the protesters.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report