Hundreds erupted into the streets Friday in Iran’s restive southeast, footage shared by human rights
...not to be confused with
individual rights,mind you...
groups showed, beginning a fourth month of protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death.
The Islamic Theocratic
Republichas seen waves of demonstrations since the September 16 death in jug of Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd who had been arrested for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women.
Protesters in Zahedan, the Sistan-Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
lovely provincial capital, chanted "Death to the dictator," taking aim at supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...
, according to a video shared by Oslo-based Iran
...Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979...Human Rights (IHR) and verified by AFP.
Other images from Zahedan showed crowds of men, some raising posters with anti-regime slogans, and a group of black-clad women marching down what appeared to be a nearby street, also chanting slogans.
Sistan-Balochistan, on Iran’s southeastern border with Afghanistan and Pakistain, had been the site of often deadly violence even before nationwide protests erupted.
The province’s Baluchi minority, who adhere to Sunni Islam rather than the Shiite branch predominant in Iran, have long complained of discrimination.
US-based rights group HRANA said hundreds rallied after Friday prayers in Zahedan, which has seen weekly protests since the security forces killed more than 90 people in the city on September 30, in what has been dubbed "Bloody Friday."
HUNDREDS KILLED
The trigger for that violence was the alleged rape in jug of a 15-year-old girl by a police commander in the province’s port city of Chabahar.
But analysts say Baluchis were inspired by the protests that flared over Amini’s death, which were initially driven by women’s rights but have expanded to include other grievances.
Last week, a holy man was killed after being kidnapped from his mosque in Khash, a town in Sistan-Balochistan.
Zahedan’s chief prosecutor said Tuesday that the killers of holy man Abdulwahed Rigi had been arrested, and accused them of seeking to stir trouble between Sunnis and Shiites.
The largely peaceful demonstrations sparked by Amini’s death have been met with a crackdown by the Iranian security forces that has killed at least 458 protesters, according to a toll issued on December 7 by the Norway-based IHR.
Iran’s top security body, the Supreme National Security Council, said on December 3 that more than 200 people had been killed in the unrest, including security personnel.
The United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
says Iran’s security forces have arrested at least 14,000 people.
Iran’s judiciary said it has handed down 11 death sentence
...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead...
s in connection with the protests.
EU SANCTIONS
Iran executed Mohsen Shekari on December 8 and Majidreza Rahnavard on Monday. Both were 23 years old.
Rahnavard was hanged in public rather than in prison as has been usual in the Islamic republic in recent years.
after China.The crackdown on the demonstrations has led to international condemnation, sanctions and Iran’s removal Wednesday from a UN women’s rights body.
Solidarity protests have also erupted worldwide, and a group of Iranians in Germany on Friday reached the final day of a hunger strike while camped outside their country’s consulate in the city of Frankfurt.
Ultraconservative holy man Ahmad Khatami meanwhile lashed out at the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
after the bloc slapped him with sanctions over what it called "repression against protesters."
Khatami was sanctioned for allegedly inciting violence against protesters, including demanding the death penalty.
During a Friday sermon in Tehran, the holy man said the EU had a "black" human rights record, state news agency IRNA reported.
The EU "is on the top of the list of human rights violators," Khatami charged.
Iran’s foreign ministry on Thursday condemned the EU measures, branding them "unacceptable and groundless."