CNN
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A fifth member of an Iranian volunteer paramilitary group died on Sunday after clashing with what state media called “rioters and thugs”, as the country’s President Ebrahim Raisi warned. protesters would be dealt with “decisively” after days of nationwide unrest.
The person died from injuries sustained Thursday in the northwestern city of Urmia Iran, Iranian news agency IRNA said. Other members of the Basij, a paramilitary organization linked to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), were killed in Qazvin, Tabriz, Mashhad and Qushan.
The protests were sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman detained by morality police on September 13 on charges of breaking the country’s conservative dress code.
Hundreds of anti-government protesters returned to the streets of Tehran and dozens of other provincial cities as night fell Sunday, despite claims by state news agencies that pro-government rallies have ended protests. demonstrations.
Protesters have organized despite a crackdown by security forces, arrests of protesters and internet disruptions. The demonstrators chanted anti-government and anti-paramount leader slogans, as well as “death to the dictator”, while expressing their anger against the Basij militias.
Since Friday, demonstrations have taken place in at least 40 cities across the country, including the capital Tehran, with demonstrators demanding an end to violence and discrimination against women and an end to the compulsory wearing of the hijab.
At least 35 people have died in Iran during recent protests over Amini’s death, state media Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) reported on Friday evening.
Amnesty International previously said 30 people had died. CNN cannot independently verify the death toll — a precise figure is impossible for anyone outside of Iran’s government to confirm — and different estimates have been given by opposition groups, international rights organizations and local journalists.
At least 1,200 people have been arrested in connection with the wave of protests, Iranian news agency Tasmin reported on Saturday, citing a security official. The IRGC accused the protesters of “rioting” and “vandalism” and called on the police to “protect the nation’s security”.
At least 17 journalists have been arrested in Iran as anti-state protests have spread across the country, according to a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a nonprofit that monitors the freedom of the press. hurry.
Iranian authorities say they will limit Internet access in the country until calm has returned to the streets. Meanwhile, the IRGC, the elite wing of the Iranian military that was created in the aftermath of the country’s revolution in 1979, has asked everyone to identify the protesters, the agency said. semi-official Fars News press.
On Sunday, hundreds of thousands of Iranians held pro-government rallies in many cities across Iran to condemn the recent unrest, IRNA reported.
People took to the streets of many cities and towns, including the holy city of Mashhad, the northwestern city of Qazvin, the central city of Isfahan as well as the western cities of Hamedan and Yasuj, to show their ” unity and outrage at recent acts of sabotage by rioters,” the state news added.
According to Press TV, the demonstrators “condemned the crimes and evil acts committed by a handful of mercenaries in the service of foreign enemies, who set fire to the Holy Quran, mosques and national flags and forcibly removed the headscarves women in the streets.
Authorities hope that by restricting the internet they can control the protests – the latest in a wave that has swept Iran in recent years. They started with the green movement in 2009 following disputed election results and, more recently, the 2019 protests sparked by rising fuel prices. Hundreds of people were believed to have been killed in the violent crackdown three years ago and thousands injured, according to estimates released by the UN and rights groups.
But this year’s protests are different — in their unprecedented scope, scale and feminist nature. There is also a mobilization across the socio-economic divide. A younger generation of Iranians are taking to the streets against decades of repression – arguably bolder than ever.
The protests have spread to dozens of Iranian cities, from the Kurdish region in the northwest, to the capital Tehran and even to more traditionally conservative cities like Mashhad.
While sparked by Amini’s death, early calls for accountability have morphed into demands for more rights and freedoms, especially for women who, for decades since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, suffered discrimination and severe restrictions of their rights.
‘I’m scared’: Women open up about Iran’s hijab law after death in police custody
But calls for regime change are also growing. Across the country, people are chanting “death to the dictator”, in reference to the supreme leader, demolishing portraits of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Remarkable footage emerged on Friday night from Khamenei’s birthplace in the city of Mashhad, where protesters set fire to the statue of a man considered one of the symbols of the Islamic revolution. Such scenes were unthinkable in the past.
All of this is happening at a time when hardline Iranian leaders are coming under increasing pressure with talks to revive the stalled 2015 nuclear deal and the state of the economy under US sanctions; ordinary Iranians are struggling to cope with soaring inflation.
Although these protests are the biggest challenge to the government in years, analysts believe the government will likely act to contain them using the heavy-handed tactics it has used in the past. There are signs that a brutal crackdown is approaching, along with internet restrictions at a level not seen since 2019. Other measures include the government mobilizing its supporters in mass rallies after Friday prayers; officials dismissing protesters as rioters and foreign agents, and ominous warnings that Iran’s military and powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps will be deployed to deal with the protests.