Many people in Germany and other European countries took to the streets again in solidarity with the demonstrators in Iran. The protests against the authoritarian leadership of the Islamic country lasted for more than six weeks.
On Saturday, Hussein Salami, the commander of the influential Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), demanded an end to the demonstrations in a speech. “The demonstrators should not push the system’s patience too far,” the general warned, according to a report by the state news agency IRNA. “Today is the last day of the riots. Don’t go out anymore.” No one will allow the demonstrators to continue to create distrust and turn the country’s universities into a “battlefield”.
Despite this, students from the capital Tehran, the northeastern pilgrimage city of Mashhad and other parts of the country continued to protest. Eyewitnesses said security forces used violence against hundreds of students on a campus in Mashhad. Police in Tehran reportedly used tear gas. Protests were held in many other cities against the course of government and the Islamic system of governance.
The trigger for the demonstrations was the death in mid-September of 22-year-old Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini. The auxiliary team arrested him for allegedly violating the Islamic dress code. The young woman later died in police custody. At least 250 people have been killed in Iran since then, and more than 10,000 have been arrested, according to human rights organizations.
At the beginning of the seventh week of the protests, Tehran intensified the voice again. Observers took IRGC Commander Salami’s speech as a final warning to end the protests. It is feared that the army and Revolutionary Guards will soon be deployed against the demonstrators. Thousands of people demonstrated again in cities such as Cologne, Berlin and Düsseldorf at the weekend in Germany.
Meanwhile, the internet continues to be restricted in Iran. Many social networks were blocked to make collusion between demonstrators more difficult. The administration in Tehran blames the country’s “enemies” – above all the United States and Israel – for the unrest. Citizens’ demands for greater freedom have hitherto been labeled a foreign conspiracy and ignored.
But even critical voices in the country are skeptical about this representation. For example, Iran-based daily Shargh denied espionage allegations against its jailed reporter, Nilufar Hamedi. Editor-in-Chief Mehdi Rahmanian emphasized that the journalist was only doing his job while reporting after Mahsa Amini’s death.
An intelligence report released Friday accused Hamdi and his colleague, Elaheh Mohammadi, of training and collaborating with an American “state mafia” and the CIA. His reports were used to ignite unrest abroad. Hamdi made the Aminis case public in Iran. He is now in the notorious Ewin prison in the capital, Tehran.
According to a law, Iran’s security forces should be paid more. Irna reported that Parliament approved a 20 percent salary increase in Tehran on Sunday. This is confirmed by the fact that the salaries of the security forces should be better than that of civilian employees of the state.
(SDA)