The protests, sparked in mid-September by the death of Mahsa Amini after she was arrested for allegedly violating strict dress codes for women, have grown into the biggest challenge to the clerical leadership since the 1979 revolution. Unlike the protests in November 2019, they were nationwide, spread across social classes, universities, streets and even schools, showing no sign of abating even as the death toll reached 200, according to a rights group. Another rights group, Norway-based Hengaw, said security forces opened fire on Sunday at a demonstration in Marivan, a city in Kurdistan province, injuring 35 people. It was not immediately possible to verify the tolls. The latest protest was sparked by the death in Tehran of a Kurdish student from Marivan, Nasrin Ghadri, who Hengaw said died on Saturday after being beaten on the head by police. Iranian authorities have not yet commented on the cause of her death. Hengau said she was buried at dawn without a funeral ceremony at the insistence of authorities who feared the event could become a flashpoint for protest. Authorities then sent reinforcements to the area, he added. Kurdish-populated areas have been at the center of protests since the death of Amini, who is a Kurd from the city of Saqez in Kurdistan province. Universities have also emerged as major hotbeds of protest. Iran Human Rights (IHR), a Norway-based organization, said students at Sharif University in Tehran staged sit-ins on Sunday in support of their arrested colleagues. Meanwhile, students at Babol University in northern Iran removed gender barriers created by law in their cafeteria, he added. The protests have been supported by a myriad of different tactics, with observers noting a relatively new trend of young people throwing clerics’ turbans into the streets. The IHR said on Saturday that at least 186 people were killed in the crackdown on the Mahsa Amini protests, 10 more than on Wednesday. It said another 118 people had died in separate protests since September 30 in Sistan-Baluchistan, a predominantly Sunni Muslim province in the southeast, presenting another major headache for the regime. The IHR said security forces killed at least 16 people with bullets when protests erupted after Friday prayers in the town of Khash in Sistan-Baluchistan. Meanwhile, Amnesty International said up to 10 people died in Friday’s violence in Khash, accusing security forces of firing on protesters from rooftops. “Iranians continue to take to the streets and are more determined than ever to bring about fundamental change,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. “The response from the Islamic Republic is more violence.” The crackdown on protests has also stalled efforts to revive the 2015 deal on Iran’s nuclear program and intensified the focus on Tehran’s ties to Russia — notably the supply of drones to Moscow used in the Ukraine war. The protests were sparked by anger over restrictive dress codes for women, for which Amini had been arrested. But now they have become a broad movement against the theocracy that has ruled Iran since the fall of the Shah. Meanwhile, Sunnis in Sistan-Baluchistan – where the alleged rape of a girl held by police sparked protests – have long felt discriminated against by the nation’s Shiite leadership. The IHR also warned that “dozens” of arrested protesters had been charged with alleged crimes that could have sent them to death – up from just a handful previously reported as potentially facing that fate. In addition to thousands of ordinary citizens, the crackdown has led to the arrests of prominent activists, journalists and artists such as the influential rapper Toomaj Salehi. There is also growing concern for the welfare of Wall Street Journal contributor and freedom of expression campaigner Hossein Ronaghi, who was arrested in September and whose family says he is on hunger strike at Evin prison. In a new blow, his father Ahmad is now in intensive care after suffering a heart attack while holding a vigil outside Evin, Hossein Ronaghi’s brother Hassan tweeted.
