The mobilizations for the death of Mahsa Amini enter their second week and add up to dozens of deaths as the government maintains its heavy-handed policy
His name was Hadis Najafi, he was 22 years old and was shot at six times in Karaj, on the outskirts of Tehran, according to his family. Hadis had become one of the symbols of the uprising against mandatory hijab use due to viral images of her pulling her blonde hair into a ponytail for a protest. A gesture so common in other parts of the world is becoming a challenge when it comes to the streets of Iran and the security forces facing the worst social unrest in the past three years.
Iran is in its second week of mobilization after the death of young Mahsa Amini at the hands of the moral police. According to official data, at least 35 have already been killed, but activists and human rights organizations count many more. Authorities have warned that they will not tolerate more chaos on the streets and believe the mobilizations are “encouraged by external enemies to overthrow the Islamic republic”. More than 50 cities have recorded violent clashes with the police, from Iranian Kurdistan, the area where Amini originally came from, to Tehran’s main arteries.
With each passing day it becomes more difficult to obtain information due to the internet restrictions imposed by the regime to make it difficult for the protesters to communicate. To this should be added the arrest of local reporters, as warned by the Association of Journalists of Iran, which has asked authorities for the immediate release of colleagues arrested while covering the protests. “They performed their professional duties,” the statement said by the association, which also reports that their homes have been searched by police.
In the absence of political leaders on the streets capable of directing the anger of thousands of Iranians and offering an alternative to the Islamic system, people from the worlds of culture or sports are showing their support for the demonstrations on social networks. Two-time Oscar-winning film director Asghar Farhadi took to Twitter to “call on all artists, filmmakers, intellectuals and human rights defenders around the world to show solidarity with the people of Iran by making videos or writing messages of support. Support came from the music world. by Kayhan Kalhor, who denounced that the Instagram social network was censoring some of its content, expressing support for the demonstrations and criticizing the regime.
National football legend Ali Karimi, with a past with teams like Bayern Munich, shared an image of some VPN providers that Iranians can use to bypass government-imposed internet disruption and tweeted out the military. ‘ in which he wrote: ‘A homeland awaits you. Don’t spill innocent blood.” The Revolutionary Guards called for Karimi’s arrest for his public support of the protests, but Karimi has long lived outside the Islamic Republic.
The European Union also responded after ten days of protests and the head of foreign policy, Josep Borrell, said he hopes “Iran will clarify the number of deaths and arrests, release all non-violent protesters and provide a fair trial for all those arrested. In addition, the death of Mahsa Amini must be properly investigated and all those responsible must be held accountable.”
Source: La Verdad
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