Nika Shahkarami, who lived in Tehran and would have turned 17 on Sunday, disappeared in September. Her family found her body at a detention center morgue 10 days later, BBC Persian reported. On Tuesday, President Ebrahim Raisi called for unity against the protests, even as they continued to grow, bringing together Iranians across ethnic and class divides despite a government crackdown. Students join anti-government protests in schools across Iran – video He repeated the government’s official line that the protest movement was driven by foreign provocateurs, but acknowledged that Iranians were angry about the Islamic Republic’s “weaknesses.” But public anger is so widespread that even a hard-line daily has openly challenged the authorities, accusing them of denying their own failings and unpopularity. “Neither foreign enemies nor domestic opposition can bring cities into a state of unrest without a background of discontent,” said an article in Jomhuri Eslami. “Denial of this fact will not help.” The protests have lasted nearly two weeks and represent the most serious popular challenge to Iran’s aging theocratic leaders in more than a decade. And unlike previous protest movements, they are led by women. An image from social media showing Iranian schoolgirls expressing their opinion on the country’s leadership. Originally sparked by the death in custody of a young Kurdish woman who had been detained by the morality police, Mahsa Amini’s name has become a digital rallying cry for supporters. But the protests have expanded into a broader call for change, from a population frustrated by political controls and economic isolation and stagnation. Security forces responded with live fire and brutal violence, already killing over 50 people and arresting over 1,500. But Iranians have continued to take to the streets and their homes, schools and offices to attack or remove pictures of the two supreme leaders who have ruled since the revolution – Ayatollah Khomeini and now Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In a video from a classroom, a girl replaced an image of the couple with the slogan of the protest movement, footage shared on social media showed. In another image, a group of teenagers were photographed making obscene gestures towards the two men. Demonstrators adopted a rallying cry originated by female Kurdish fighters: “Women. ZOE. Freedom”. In videos from across Iran, women walk and dance in the streets without covering their hair and burn their scarves. Where people can’t protest, they’ve staged indoor demonstrations and evaded a government crackdown on the Internet to upload videos and photos. Another class protest. Iranian authorities have a long history of using lethal force against protesters, including in 2019 and 2009. As the movement gathers pace and rulers in Tehran appear increasingly uneasy, Western governments have warned Khamenei against escalating. Joe Biden said he was “gravely concerned about reports of escalating violent repression.” Washington supported technological solutions that would allow Iranian citizens to evade their government’s controls on the internet, the US president added. He also threatened “additional costs” for anyone responsible for violence against peaceful protesters. France pushed for the EU to “target senior officials and hold them accountable,” the Associated Press reported. In the UK, the government summoned the Iranian ambassador and the foreign secretary, James Cleverley, described the levels of violence as “truly shocking”. The government has tried to scare Iranian celebrities and journalists into silence online and force ordinary citizens to return to their homes, but so far their efforts have had mixed success. On Monday, students protested the mass arrests in Tehran, with a demonstration in the conservative city of Mashhad, where they argued that so many of them had been detained that the country’s most notorious prison looked more like a university campus. “Sharif University has become a prison! Evin prison has become a university,” they shouted. Sharif University became a battleground over the weekend, with students besieged by security forces using tear gas and many arrested. Schoolgirls marched through the streets without their hijabs, chanting “Women. ZOE. Freedom’ in the town of Karaj, west of the capital, and in the Kurdish town of Sanandaj, according to widely shared footage. The scenes echoed the days after the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought the current government to power. Then, as now, large numbers of women came out to protest against the mandatory hijab, and high school students played a key role, though the protests were eventually quelled. Dozens of Iranian journalists have been arrested in an apparent attempt to shut down news about the protests, and the government has tried to throttle the Internet and block access to key social media sites used for both protest planning and news sharing. Authorities also arrested a musician who played protest chants and messages. Shervin Hajipour’s mournful song “For the Sake Of” became an unofficial anthem almost overnight. he has been released on bail. “For my sister, for your sister, for our sisters,” she sings on the record, acknowledging the critical role of women leading the protests.
