Crowds on the streets – reports: deaths in nationwide protests in Iran

Thousands of people took to the streets on Tuesday. Activists recently called for multi-day protests and strikes. The demonstrations are intended to commemorate the violent crackdown on the 2019 protests, which became known as “Bloody November” with hundreds killed. Given the restrictions on the internet, activists in the country increasingly rely on papers.

Mass protests for two months
In 2019, protests were fueled by high gasoline prices. However, they soon turned against the course of the government and political leadership in Tehran. For about two months, broad layers of society have once again been demonstrating against the Islamic Republic. The trigger was the death of the young Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini in police custody. The vice squad arrested her in mid-September for violating Islamic dress codes.

Meanwhile, police and security forces stepped up their presence in central squares and bazaars. In the capital Tehran, state forces used drones and shots were heard in some places, eyewitnesses reported Tuesday. Many shops in the country were closed and some shopkeepers also went on strike in solidarity with the protests. Videos on social media showed protests and violent clashes in different parts of the country.

Crowds gathered in Tehran’s metro stations chanting protest slogans against the political leadership (see above). A video shared thousands of times on social media showed panicked scenes in a subway station. In the approximately 30-second clip, people fall over each other while gunshots can be heard in the background. The place and time of the recording could not be independently verified. In the past, however, there were regular meetings in the subway with slogans critical of the Islamic Republic.