As the protests entered their fourth week since Mahsa Amini’s inexplicable murder on September 16th while being detained by the Iranian “moral police,” heated night rallies started on Sunday evening in a number of Iranian towns.
In Tehran, Sanandaj in the Kurdistan area, Mahabad in the West Azerbaijan Province, and Zanjan, the provincial seat of Zanjan, videos showed people congregating at night.
According to the website “Iran International,” some of the videos posted on social media discussed a gathering in Nazi Abad in Tehran, and other videos showed rallies in the city of Walzer in the Tehran region.
For its part, the Hengao website stated that for the first time since the most recent protests, residents of Salas Babajani in Kermanshah province took to the streets.
Death to the dictator was chanted when Sanandaj residents set fire to the streets on Sunday evening to block the way of security personnel.
In the meantime, protestors in Mahabad persisted with their anti-government demonstrations by blocking access to the security forces by marching through the streets and torching garbage cans.
On Sunday, Sohank University of Arts students marched in the university’s courtyard while a nationwide student movement against the government went on. They raised their hands in blood to denounce government violence.
Threatening students is still a tactic used by university presidents to put an end to student strikes.
On Sunday, security personnel reportedly detained children inside a school, according to accounts on social media.
Additionally, the government shut down all colleges and universities in Iranian Kurdistan.
According to rights organisations, video footage from early Sunday morning rallies in dozens of Iranian cities showed hundreds of high school girls and university students taking part in demonstrations against security agents using tear gas, clubs, and, in many cases, live bullets against them.
It is significant that protests have continued in the nation ever since the death of 22-year-old Amini on September 16 (2022), three days after her arrest by the morality police and subsequent transport to a hospital in Tehran.
Since then, discontent over a number of issues—including limitations on individual freedoms and stringent dress codes for women—as well as the dire living and economic circumstances of Iranians has grown. Not to mention the stringent regulations enforced by the regime and its political system in general.
While this was going on, the government used repressive and violent methods to suppress the demonstrators, including cutting off Internet access and firing live ammunition.
Political leaders continued to use the “betrayal” narrative, at times labelling the demonstrators as traitors and other times as troublemakers and “flies” connected to other countries.
Angry nighttime demonstrators in Iran chanted “Death to the Dictator.”
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