Protests spread across Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini

Protests spread across Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini

Joyce Karam tweeted on September 16:


The Guardian reports:

Iran has sent police to the streets in a scramble to end protests that have spread to at least 15 cities, as rights groups and local media reported up to six people had been killed in crackdowns.

There were reports of internet blackouts in parts of the country in an apparent attempt to quell growing anger. The telecommunications minister, Issa Zarepour, was quoted by the official Irna news agency as saying there had been some “temporary restrictions in some places and at some hours”.

State media reported that police used teargas and made arrests to disperse crowds of up to 1,000 people on Tuesday evening. Irna claimed demonstrators had hurled stones at security forces and set fire to police vehicles.

Protests have engulfed parts of the country over the past five days after the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the morality police for not wearing the hijab appropriately.

Irna said a “police assistant” died of injuries on Tuesday in the southern city of Shiraz. And a Kurdish human rights group, Hengaw, said two more people had been killed by police, raising the claimed death toll since Amini’s death to six.

An additional 450 people had been wounded and 500 arrested, the group said, figures that could not be independently verified.

Demonstrations have rocked the country. Social media has shown women being cornered by helmeted men on motorbikes and beaten. Many women had taken off their headscarves in protest against the morality police, who have been enforcing the hijab in line with a decree issued by the new leadership of the president, Ebrahim Raisi. [Continue reading…]


The Associated Press reports:

Iranians saw their access to Instagram, one of the few Western social media platforms still available in the country, disrupted on Wednesday following days of mass protests over the death of a woman who was detained by the morality police.

NetBlocks, a London-based group that monitors internet access, reported widespread disruptions. Witnesses inside Iran, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns, said they were unable to log on using mobile phones or home connections.

There was no immediate comment from Iranian authorities on the disruption to Instagram, which would limit the ability of protesters to organize and share information.

Iran already blocks Facebook, Telegram, Twitter and YouTube, even though top Iranian officials use public accounts on such platforms. Many Iranians get around the bans using virtual private networks, known as VPNs, and proxies. [Continue reading…]

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