Iran’s supreme chief blames US, Israel for anti-hijab protests

Iran’s supreme chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded publicly on Monday to the most important protests in Iran in years, breaking weeks of silence to sentence what he known as “rioting” and accuse the United States and Israel of planning the protests.

The unrest, ignited by the dying of a younger lady within the custody of Iran’s morality police, is flaring up throughout the nation for a 3rd week regardless of authorities efforts to crack down.

On Monday, Iran shuttered its prime know-how college following an hours-long standoff between college students and the police that turned the distinguished establishment into the newest flashpoint of protests and ended with a whole lot of younger individuals arrested.

Speaking to a cadre of police college students in Tehran, Khamenei mentioned he was “deeply heartbroken” by the dying of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody, calling it a “tragic incident.” However, he lambasted the protests as a overseas plot to destabilize Iran, echoing authorities’ earlier feedback.

“This rioting was planned,” he mentioned. “These riots and insecurities were designed by America and the Zionist regime, and their employees.”

Meanwhile, Sharif University of Technology in Tehran introduced that solely doctoral college students could be allowed on campus till additional discover following hours of turmoil Sunday, when witnesses mentioned antigovernment protesters clashed with pro-establishment college students.

The witnesses, who spoke on situation of anonymity for worry of reprisals, mentioned the police saved a whole lot of scholars holed up on campus and fired rounds of tear gasoline to disperse the demonstrations. The scholar affiliation mentioned plainclothes officers surrounded the college from all sides as protests roiled the campus after dusk and detained a minimum of 300 college students.

Plainclothes officers beat a professor and several other college staff, the affiliation added.

The state-run IRNA information company sought to downplay the violent standoff, reporting a “protest gathering” passed off with out inflicting casualties. But it additionally mentioned police launched 30 college students from detention, acknowledging many had been caught within the dragnet by mistake as they tried to go dwelling.

The crackdown sparked backlash on Monday at dwelling and overseas.

“Suppose we beat and arrest, is this the solution?” requested a column within the Jomhouri Eslami day by day, a hard-line Iranian newspaper. “Is this productive?”

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock condemned the “the regime’s brute force” at Sharif University as “an expression of sheer fear at the power of education and freedom.”

“The courage of Iranians is incredible,” she mentioned.

U.S. President Joe Biden mentioned he stays “gravely concerned about reports of the intensifying violent crackdown on peaceful protestors in Iran, including students and women, who are demanding their equal rights and basic human dignity.”

“The United States stands with Iranian women and all the citizens of Iran who are inspiring the world with their bravery,” Biden mentioned in a press release.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres instructed reporters: “It is absolutely essential to show maximum restraint, maximum containment, when dealing (with) demonstrations all over the world, and the same is valid, obviously, for Iran.”

Iran’s newest protest motion, which has produced among the nation’s most widespread unrest in years, emerged as a response to Amini’s dying after her arrest for allegedly violating the nation’s strict Islamic gown code. It has since grown into an open problem to the Iranian management, with girls burning their state-mandated headscarves and chants of “Death to the dictator,” echoing from streets and balconies after darkish.

The demonstrations have tapped a deep nicely of grievances in Iran, together with the nation’s social restrictions, political repression and ailing economic system strangled by American sanctions. The unrest has continued in Tehran and far-flung provinces at the same time as authorities have disrupted web entry and blocked social media apps.

Protests even have unfold throughout the Middle East and to Europe and North America. Thousands poured into the streets of Los Angeles to indicate solidarity. Police scuffled with protesters outdoors Iranian embassies in London and Athens. Crowds chanted “Woman! Life! Freedom!” in Paris.

In his remarks on Monday, Khamenei condemned scenes of protesters ripping off their hijabs and setting fireplace to mosques, banks and police automobiles as “actions that are not normal, that are unnatural.” He warned that “those who foment unrest to sabotage the Islamic Republic deserve harsh prosecution and punishment.”

Security forces have responded with tear gasoline, metallic pellets and in some instances stay fireplace, in accordance with rights teams and extensively shared footage, though the scope of the crackdown stays unclear.

Iran’s state TV has reported the dying toll from violent clashes between protesters and safety officers may very well be as excessive as 41. Rights teams have given larger dying counts, with London-based Amnesty International saying it has recognized 52 victims.

An untold variety of individuals have been apprehended, with native officers reporting a minimum of 1,500 arrests. Security forces have picked up artists who’ve voiced assist for the protests and dozens of journalists. Most lately Sunday, authorities arrested Alborz Nezami, a reporter at an financial newspaper in Tehran.

Iran’s intelligence ministry mentioned 9 foreigners have been detained over the protests. A 30-year-old Italian traveler named Alessia Piperno known as her mother and father on Sunday to say she had been arrested, her father Alberto Piperno instructed Italian information company ANSA.

“We are very worried,” he mentioned. “The situation isn’t going well.”

Most of the protesters look like below 25, in accordance with witnesses — Iranians who’ve grown up understanding little however world isolation and extreme Western sanctions linked to Iran’s nuclear program. Talks to revive the landmark 2015 nuclear deal have stalled for months, fueling discontent as Iran’s foreign money declines in worth and costs soar.

A Tehran-based college instructor, Shahindokht Kharazmi, mentioned the brand new era has provide you with unpredictable methods to defy authorities.

“The (young protesters) have learned the strategy from video games and play to win,” Kharazmi instructed the pro-reform Etemad newspaper. “There is no such thing as defeat for them.”

As the brand new educational 12 months started this week, college students at universities in main cities throughout Iran gathered in protest, in accordance with movies extensively shared on social media, clapping, chanting slogans towards the federal government and waving their headscarves.

The eruption of scholar anger has anxious the Islamic Republic since a minimum of 1999, when safety forces and supporters of hard-line clerics attacked college students protesting media restrictions. That wave of scholar protests below former reformist President Mohammad Khatami touched off the worst avenue battles because the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

“Don’t call it a protest, it’s a revolution now,” shouted college students at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, as girls set their hijabs alight.

“Students are awake, they hate the leadership!” chanted crowds on the University of Mazandaran within the nation’s north.

Riot police have been out in drive, patrolling streets close to universities on motorbikes.

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