The unrest, sparked by the death of a young woman detained by Iran’s morality police, has raged across the country for a third week despite government efforts to quell it. On Monday, Iran closed its top technological university after an hours-long standoff between students and police that turned the prestigious institution into the latest flashpoint of protests and ended with hundreds of young people arrested. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attends a graduation ceremony for armed forces officer universities at a police academy in Tehran, Iran, on Monday. (Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Reuters) Speaking to a cadre of police students in Tehran, Khamenei said he was “devastated” by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody, calling it a “sad incident”. But he strongly condemned the protests as a foreign plot to destabilize Iran, echoing earlier comments by authorities. “This uprising was planned,” he told police student officials in Tehran. “These riots and insecurities were planned by America and the Zionist regime and their employees.”
Hours of turmoil
Meanwhile, Sharif University of Technology in Tehran announced that only doctoral students would be allowed on campus until further notice after hours of unrest on Sunday afternoon, when witnesses said anti-government protesters clashed with hard-line, pro-regime students. WATCHES | Conservatives Urge Liberals to Designate IRGC as a Terrorist Organization:
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During question period, Conservative MP Melissa Landsman asked why the Trudeau government has not designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization. Secretary of State Melanie Joly says more sanctions are coming on the Iranian regime and other entities. The witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said police detained hundreds of students on campus and fired tear gas to break up the protests. The university’s student union said police and plainclothes officers surrounded the school on all sides and arrested at least 300 students as protests rocked the campus after nightfall. Plainclothes officers beat a professor and several university employees, the association said. State news agency IRNA attempted to downplay the violent confrontation, saying a “protest rally” took place and ended without casualties. People run during clashes with riot police as students protest in Tehran, Iran, on Sunday. (Reuters) Iran’s latest protest movement, which has sparked some of the nation’s most widespread unrest in years, emerged in response to Amini’s death after she was arrested for allegedly violating the country’s strict Islamic dress code. But it has evolved into an open challenge to Iran’s leadership, with chants of “Death to the dictator” echoing from the streets and balconies after dark.
So the complaints
The protests have tapped into a deep well of grievances in Iran, including the country’s social restrictions, political repression and a struggling economy long strangled by US sanctions. Protests, with women burning their headscarves and crowds calling for the downfall of ruling clerics, continued in Tehran and in far-flung provinces, even as authorities have restricted internet access to the outside world and blocked social media apps. . WATCHES | Canada’s foreign minister explains new sanctions on Iran:
The goal is “maximum pressure on the Iranian regime” — Joly explains the new sanctions
Secretary of State Melanie Joly says the federal government is imposing sanctions on 34 Iranians and Iranian entities, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the morality police. In his remarks on Monday, Khamenei condemned scenes of protesters cutting off their hijabs and setting fire to mosques, banks and police cars as “actions that are not normal, unnatural”. Security forces responded with tear gas, metal pellets and in some cases live fire, according to rights groups and widely shared material, though the extent of the crackdown remains unclear. Iran’s state television said the death toll from violent clashes between protesters and security officers could reach 41. Rights groups have given higher death tolls, with London-based Amnesty International saying it has identified 52 victims, including five women and at least five children. An untold number of people have been arrested, with local officials reporting at least 1,500 arrests. Security forces have arrested dozens of artists and activists who have expressed support for the protests, as well as dozens of journalists in the widening net. Most recently on Sunday, authorities arrested Alborz Nezami, a journalist at a financial newspaper in Tehran. WATCHES | Clashes on the streets of Tehran:
People run during clashes with police in Iran
Video posted on social media and obtained by Reuters shows a crowd dispersing and shouting on a street outside a university in Tehran as Iranian security forces clash with students. Khamenei said those who incite unrest to “sabotage” the country deserve harsh prosecution and punishment. Young people who “come to the streets out of excitement after watching something online,” he added, should be “disciplined.” Most of the protesters appear to be under the age of 25, according to eyewitnesses — Iranians who have grown up with global isolation and tough Western sanctions tied to Iran’s nuclear program. Talks to revive the landmark 2015 nuclear deal have stalled for months, fueling public discontent as Iran’s currency depreciates and prices soar. As the new academic year began this week, students gathered in protest at universities across Iran, according to videos widely shared on social media, chanting anti-government slogans and decrying security forces’ crackdown on protesters.
