A wave of outrage has shaken Iran and the protest movement has become the most important since the 2019 demonstrations against rising gasoline prices. At least 92 people have died since September 16, according to the NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR).
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In turn, Iranian authorities released a death toll of 60, including 12 security agents. More than a thousand people have been detained and 620 have already been released in Tehran province, according to authorities.
Last weekend, a group of students gathered and were cornered by riot police in an underground parking lot at the Sharif University of Technology. Then they were arrested.
Since then, groups of much younger students, often high school girls, have taken the lead in protests involving removing their veils and shouting slogans against the regime.
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On Twitter, you can find videos of students at another university protesting for Sharif's students:
“You killed Sharif [university students], so you tell us to be silent!” shout the students at Ferdowsi University in Mashhad.
A video verified by AFP shows young girls with their hair showing shouting “death to the dictator”, in reference to supreme leader Ali Khamenei, on Monday at a school in Karaj, west of the capital Tehran.
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Another group shouted “Woman, life, freedom” while demonstrating in the street.
“These are truly extraordinary scenes. If these demonstrations achieve anything, it will be thanks to these students”, declared Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, from the information and analysis portal Bourse&Bazaar.
Young people under the influence of social media
Iran's Attorney General, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, assured this Wednesday (5) that there were young people participating in the demonstrations due to the influence of social media.
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“The fact that there are 16-year-olds at these events is a consequence of social media,” declared the attorney general, according to the ISNA agency.
Since the start of the protest movement, the Iranian regime has intensified repression by arresting supporters of the most prominent uprisings and imposing harsh restrictions on access to social media.
This Wednesday, the NGO Human Rights Watch stated that it verified 16 videos published on social media, in which, according to it, agents of the “police and other security forces” appear “using force in an excessive and lethal manner against protesters”.
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The images show police “using firearms, such as pistols and Kalashnikov rifles,” the NGO said in a statement. The repression “demonstrates a concerted effort on the part of the government to placate dissent, with callous disregard for life,” the document adds.
With AFP
