Social and Political

VOA —Iran intensified its crackdown Tuesday on Kurdish areas in the country’s west as protests sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman detained by the morality police rage on, activists said. Riot police fired into at least one neighborhood in Sanandaj, the capital of Iran’s Kurdistan province, as Amnesty International and the White House’s national security adviser criticized the …

CHRI – The government in Iran must immediately halt its use of lethal force against civilian protesters, including in the besieged province of Kurdistan, where at least four people were reportedly killed and more than one hundred injured on October 9, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) said in a statement today. “The ruthless killings of civilians by security forces …

Al-Arabia – The death of Mahsa Amini, which has sparked anti-government protests across Iran, was an “excuse” used by the Islamic Republic’s adversaries to foment unrest in the country, Iran’s judiciary chief said on Monday. “Today, it is obvious to everyone that the death of a girl was completely an excuse,” Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei claimed. Mohseni-Ejei cited a report by Iran’s …

Al-Arabia – Britain said on Monday it had sanctioned senior Iranian security officials and its “so-called Morality Police,” saying the force had used threats of detention and violence to control what Iranian women wear and how they behave in public. The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody has sparked protests across Iran, with protesters calling for the downfall …

RFL/RE – More than 1,000 workers at the Bushehr and Damavand petrochemical plants have joined in protests in Iran as demonstrators angry over the death of a young woman detained over an alleged Islamic dress code violation continued to defy a violent crackdown on dissent. According to reports by RFE/RL’s Radio Farda, the oil workers blocked access roads and chanted slogans, such …

RFL/RE – Activists in Iran have disrupted a live state television broadcast by airing images and messages in support of continuing protests against the government and the country’s strict hijab law requiring women to wear head scarves. Islamic Republic TV footage of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei meeting state officials was interrupted briefly on October 8 and replaced with images …

Iranwire – Schoolgirls have become the latest target of Iran’s security agencies in anti-government protests that entered the fourth week on Sunday. Security forces stormed girls’ schools in several cities on Sunday, reports indicate, and footage obtained by IranWire shows security forces arriving in vans, some without license plates, and checking students’ mobile phones for any sign that they had participated …

VOA — Growing up under a repressive system, Sharo, a 35-year-old university graduate, never thought she would hear words of open rebellion spoken out loud. Now she herself chants slogans like “Death to the Dictator!” with a fury she didn’t know she had, as she joins protests calling for the toppling of the country’s rulers. Sharo said that after three weeks …

VOA – Germany’s foreign minister is calling for European Union entry bans and asset freezes against those responsible for what she described as brutal repression against anti-government protesters in Iran. The most sustained protests in years against Iran’s theocracy are now in their fourth week. They erupted Sept. 17 after the burial of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman who …

RFL/RE – Activists in Iran have disrupted a live state television broadcast by airing images and messages in support of continuing protests against the government and the country’s strict hijab law requiring women to wear head scarves. Islamic Republic TV footage of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei meeting state officials was interrupted briefly on October 8 and replaced with images …