Iran’s president tries to assuage anger as protests proceed

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Tuesday appealed for nationwide unity and tried to allay anger towards the nation’s rulers, even because the anti-government protests which have engulfed the nation for weeks continued to unfold to universities and excessive colleges.

Raisi acknowledged that the Islamic Republic had “weaknesses and shortcomings,” however repeated the official line that the unrest sparked final month by the demise of a lady within the custody of the nation’s morality police was nothing in need of a plot by Iran’s enemies.

“Today the country’s determination is aimed at cooperation to reduce people’s problems,” he advised a parliament session.

“Unity and national integrity are necessities that render our enemy hopeless.” His claims echoed these of Iran’s supreme chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who blamed the United States and Israel, the nation’s adversaries, for inciting the unrest in his first remarks on the nationwide protests on Monday.

It’s a well-known tactic for Iran’s leaders, who’ve been mistrustful of Western affect because the 1979 Islamic Revolution and generally blame home issues on international enemies with out providing proof.

The protests, which emerged in response to the demise of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after her arrest for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict gown code, have embroiled dozens of cities throughout the nation and developed into essentially the most widespread problem to Iran’s management in years.

A sequence of festering crises have helped gas public rage, together with the nation’s political repression, ailing financial system and international isolation.

The scope of the continued unrest, essentially the most sustained in over a decade, nonetheless stays unclear as witnesses report spontaneous gatherings throughout the nation that includes small acts of defiance — comparable to protesters shouting slogans from rooftops, reducing their hair and burning their state-mandated headscarves.

The hardline Kayhan day by day on Tuesday tried to downplay the dimensions of the motion, saying that “anti-revolutionaries,” or these against the Islamic Republic, “are in the absolute minority, possibly 1 per cent.” But one other hardline newspaper, the Jomhuri Eslami day by day, forged doubt on authorities claims that international nations had been responsible for the nation’s turmoil.

“Neither foreign enemies nor domestic opposition can take cities into a state of riot without a background of discontent,” its editorial learn. “The denial of this fact will not help.” Iran’s safety forces have sought to disperse demonstrations with tear gasoline, metallic pellets, and in some circumstances dwell fireplace, rights teams say.

Iran’s state TV studies that violent confrontations between protesters and the police have killed not less than 41 individuals, however human rights teams say the quantity is way greater.

An escalating crackdown on the press, with dozens of journalists arrested in the previous few weeks, has stifled most unbiased reporting on delicate points such because the deaths of protesters.

The latest disappearance and demise of a 17-year-old lady in Tehran, nevertheless, has unleashed an outpouring of anger on Iranian social media.

Nika Shahkarami, who lived within the capital together with her mom, vanished one night time final month through the protests in Tehran, her uncle Kianoush Shakarami advised the semiofficial Tasnim information company. She was lacking for every week earlier than her lifeless physique was present in a Tehran avenue and was returned to her household, Tasnim reported, including kin had not acquired official phrase on how she died.

Foreign-based Iranian activists allege she died in police custody, with a whole bunch circulating her picture and utilizing her identify as hashtag on-line for the protest motion. The prosecutor within the western Lorestan province, Dariush Shahoonvand, denied any wrongdoing by authorities and mentioned was buried in her village Monday.

“Foreign enemies have tried to create a tense and anxious atmosphere after this incident,” he advised the Hamshari day by day, with out elaborating on what occurred.

As the brand new tutorial yr started this week, demonstrations unfold shortly to college campuses, lengthy thought-about sanctuaries in occasions of turmoil.

Videos on social media confirmed college students expressing solidarity with friends who had been arrested and calling for the top of the Islamic Republic. Roiled by the unrest, many universities moved lessons on-line this week.

The prestigious Sharif University of Technology in Tehran grew to become a battlefield on Sunday as safety forces surrounded the campus from all sides and fired tear gasoline at protesters who had been holed up inside a car parking zone, stopping them from leaving.

The pupil union reported that police arrested a whole bunch of scholars, though many had been later launched.

In one video on Monday, college students at Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran marched and chanted, “Jailed students must be freed!” In one other, college students streamed via Khayyam University within the conservative metropolis of Mashhad, shouting, “Sharif University has become a jail! Evin Prison has become a university!” — referring to Iran’s infamous jail in Tehran.

Protests additionally appeared to grip gender-segregated excessive colleges throughout Iran, the place teams of younger schoolgirls waved their hijabs and chanted “Woman! Life! Freedom!” within the metropolis of Karaj west of the capital and within the Kurdish metropolis of Sanandaj on Monday, in response to extensively shared footage.

The response by Iran’s safety forces has sparked widespread condemnation. On Monday, President Joe Biden mentioned his administration was “gravely concerned about reports of the intensifying violent crackdown on peaceful protesters in Iran, including students and women.” The British international workplace summoned the Iranian ambassador in London.

“The violence leveled at protests in Iran by the security forces is truly shocking,” mentioned British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.
Security forces have rounded up an untold variety of demonstrators, in addition to artists who’ve voiced help for the protests. Local officers report not less than 1,500 arrests.

Shervin Hajipour, an Iranian singer who emerged as one thing of a protest icon for his wildly well-liked track impressed by Amini’s demise, was detained final week. His lawyer mentioned he was launched on bail Tuesday and rejoined his household in Iran’s northern metropolis of Babolsar.

In his somber ballad, “For the sake of,” he sings of why Iranians are rising up in protest.

“For dancing in the streets,” he intones. “For my sister, for your sister, for our sisters.”