According to the semi-official “Tasnim News Agency” today, Wednesday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned the British ambassador, Simon Sharcliffe, after Britain denounced the Iranian government’s repression of the protests that have been taking place there for three weeks and denounced the killing of the twenty-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini.
The action was taken in response to the British Foreign Office summoning Iran’s top diplomat, Mehdi Hosseini Mateen, to London on Monday in protest over the government’s crackdown on rallies.
James Cleverly, the foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, emphasised that “the violence used against the protesters by the Iranian security forces is genuinely disturbing.
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In addition, he said that the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made clear its position to the Iranian authorities, saying that they should “take responsibility for their acts and listen to the concerns of their people” rather than blaming other parties for the turmoil.
He emphasised that Britain is “would keep cooperating with its allies to hold the Iranian government responsible for their egregious abuses of human rights.
It is interesting that the Iranian protest movements have now lasted three weeks following the report that Amini, 22, died on September 16—three days after she had been detained by the morality police, also known as the religion police.
Hundreds of women chopped their hair and tossed their headscarves during a wave of protests that took place in more than 150 places in response to her murder.
In recent days, secondary schools and universities were also affected by the protests.
While doing so, the riot police used brutal tactics to disperse hundreds of students, particularly at Tehran’s Sharif University of Technology, the nation’s top scientific institution. The police occasionally fired live ammunition and even used tear gas.
The brutality against the demonstrators was denounced by London. Tehran became enraged and called the embassy.
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