Mahsa Amini, 22, died on September 16, three days after she was detained and reportedly beaten by “morality police” for “inappropriate attire”

EA on BBC: A Beginner’s Guide to Iran’s Hijab-Amini Protests

“Nothing to Lose”: The Schoolgirls at the Forefront of Iran’s Hijab-Amini Protests

Iran’s Hijab Protests Challenge Legitimacy of A Weakened Regime

Iran’s Mahsa Amini Protests: “This Time, We Won’t Back Down. They Can’t Kill All of Us”

UPDATE 1035 GMT:

The head of Iran’s judiciary, Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, has demanded harsh sentences for “the main elements” of the protests. He said there is no room for “misplaced sympathy”.

On Monday, Mohseni-Ejei had called for dialogue over the protests, leading some analysts to forecast an easing of the regime’s position. But on Wednesday, the Supreme Leader set out the harder line (see below) that “enemies’ interference” was behind all demonstrations.

UPDATE 1026 GMT:

The Oslo-based Iran Human Rights says at least 201 people, including 23 children, have been killed during the protests over compulsory hijab and the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

UPDATE 1018 GMT:

Several Iranian filmmakers have withdrawn from the Tehran Short Film Festival in solidarity with the families of those killed in protests.

Hamid Najafirad, Pouyan Sedghi, Hassan Hosseini, and Fardin Khalatbari are among those who will not show their films. Kaveh Mazaheri, an international consultant for the festival, has also cancelled his participation.

Cracking down on dissent, Iranian authorities arrested three prominent filmmakers — Jafar Panahi, Mohammad Rasoulof, and Mostafa al-Ahmad — in July.

Al-Ahmed was handed a 6-year, 4-month sentence last week.

UPDATE 0955 GMT:

Former Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani has called for the regime to rethink its approach to compulsory hijab and the use of “morality police”.

In an interview with the daily Ettelaat, Larijani said:

The hijab has a cultural solution, it does not need decrees and referendums. I appreciate the services of the police force and Basij [militia], but this burden of encouraging the hijab should not be assigned to them.

Do not doubt that when a cultural phenomenon becomes widespread, rigid response to it is not the cure. The people and young people who come to the street are our own children. In a family, if a child commits a crime, they try to guide him to the right path, the society needs more tolerance.

It’s like a person has a migraine, but we write a prescription for him like a person with a heart disease and all its arteries are closed. In the issue of hijab, we were in this situation.

Larijani and his brothers — former judiciary head Sadeq and former senior judiciary official Mohammad Javad — have been prominent conservatives for decades. Ali Larijani was Parliament Speaker from 2008 to 2020, and Sadeq Larijani led the judiciary from 2009 to 2019 and currently heads the Expediency Council.

However, Ali Larijani has been marginalized by Iranian hardliners and the Supreme Leader’s office. The Guardian Council blocked him from standing for President last year, paving the way for the managed election of Ebrahim Raisi.

Larijani noted in the intervie that during the Shah’s rule up to 1979, many women wore hijab even though it was not encouraged:

Islamic government means that people manage their own affairs. It is the same in terms of social justice. If the affairs are managed by the people, their talents will flourish.

“The problem is that if in a society, young people do not implement one of the sharia rulings correctly from an intellectual and social point of view, this is not 100% wrong.

He also implicitly challenged the regime over long-running accusations, traded between the Larijanis and their hardline critics, of corruption.

“Hijab rules are more rigid [in some societies] than ours,” he said. “Is there less corruption in them? No, it was more hidden.”

UPDATE 0755 GMT:

An Iranian official has confirmed that detained high school students are sent to re-education camps to “educate and amend” their behavior.

Education Minister Yousef Nouri said on Monday that the “psychological centers” are to prevent the students from turning into “anti-social people”: “Experts are doing their work so the students can return to the school environment after they have been reformed.”

The Supreme Leader pointed to the re-education in an address on Wednesday, saying “cultural work is needed” for “agitated” demonstrators (see below).

UPDATE 0739 GMT:

Amid Iran’s nationwide protests, the US says discussions over renewal of the 2015 nuclear deal are “not our focus right now”

The talks between Iran and the 5+1 Powers (US, UK, France, China, Germany, and Russia) have been seeking American re-entry to the agreement, the lifting of US sanctions on Tehran, and Iran’s return to compliance.

However, they have made little progress since March and have been stuck over Iran’s demand for strict limits on inspections of nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said Wednesday:

It is very clear and the Iranians have made very clear that this is not a deal that they have been prepared to make. The deal certainly does not appear imminent.

Nothing we’ve heard in recent weeks suggests they have changed their position. And so right now our focus…is on the remarkable bravery and courage that the Iranian people are exhibiting through their peaceful demonstrations.

Our focus right now is on shining a spotlight on what they’re doing and supporting them in the ways we can.

UPDATE, OCT 13:

At least 100 people blocked a road in central Tehran on Wednesday night, chanting, “By cannon, tank, or firecracker, mullahs must get lost”. Dozens of riot police deployed in a Tehran street as a fire burnt.

The violent crackdown by security forces continued in the Kurdistan region in northwest Iran. In the city of Bukan, security forces wounded 11 people, according to human rights group Hengaw.

There was also shooting in the city of Sanandaj. A protester said, “Several demonstrators got injured. Riot police are everywhere.”

Iran police chief Hossein Ashtari insisted on State TV that individuals linked to opposition groups abroad disguised themselves as police and fired into the crowds.

Gunfire by security forces was also reported in Kermanshah in western Iran, in Isfahan in the center, and Karaj near Tehran.

Iranian authorities continue to restrict Internet traffic to about 25% of normal usage.

UPDATE 1703 GMT:

Security forces have arrested about 25 people, including at least three lawyers, outside the Iranian Bar Association in Tehran.

The rally had been chanting, “Lawyers Support The People! We Salute The Martyrs!” and “Woman, Life, Freedom!”

An eyewitness told the Center for Human Rights in Iran that the security forces used tear gas to break up the gathering. Two white vans without license plates seized some protesters and took them to an undisclosed location. Among those detained were lawyers Mohammad Reza Faqihi, Saeed Sheikh, and an unidentified female attorney.

State security forces removed cameras outside nearby buildings, hoping to use the footage to identify and arrest other protesters.

At least four defense attorneys — Mahsa Gholamalizadeh, Saeid Jalilian, Milad Panahipour, and Babak Paknia — were among at least 92 members of civil society detained in late September.

UPDATE 1456 GMT:

The Supreme Leader has again denied the legitimacy of the protests over compulsory hijab and the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

Addressing members of Iran’s Expediency Council, Khamenei maintained, “The issue of the enemies’ interference in the recent street riots in Iran is recognized by everyone”, with the “onslaught of propaganda, influencing people’s thinking, provoking excitement, [and] actions such as teaching how to make Molotov cocktails”.

Khamenei did not address the issue of compulsory hijab, Amini’s death, or the killing of scores of demonstrators — including teenage women — by Iranian security forces.

Instead, he said some protesters were “agents of or in line with the enemy”. Others “were just agitated” — for them, “cultural work is needed”.

UPDATE 0842 GMT:

The prominent political scientist Sadegh Zibakalam has been fired by the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences of Tehran University.

As in 2009 after the disputed Presidential elections brought millions of Iranians onto the streets, Zibakalam has been one of the few voices in the Iranian establishment able to back demonstrations and criticize the regime.

He was sentenced in 2018 to a sentence of 18 months, which he has not yet had to serve, for “spreading propaganda”. Authorities blocked publication of his latest book The Shah Did Not Kill, and he has been repeatedly summoned to the Ministry of Intelligence many times and accused of inciting subversion.

He was dismissed by both Azad and Tehran Universities in 2017 because he said he would recognize the state of Israel. However, Tehran’s Faculty brought him back the next year to teach a course at the insistence of students.

Interviewed by IranWire, Zibakalam says, “I still have hope there might be people inside the system who could convince the Supreme Leader and the commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that they cannot run the country with one-sidedness and stubbornness.”

UPDATE, OCT 12:

Amid more killings of protesters, notably in Iranian Kurdistan in northwest Iran, rights groups says Tehran’s security forces have launched “an all-out military attack”.

Assessments of both the demonstrations and the casualties are limited by the restriction of the Internet by Iranian authorities. However, videos which have come out of the city of Sanandaj showed security personnel shooting directly at protesters on Monday.

The Kurdish human rights organization Hengaw says at least five residents have been killed and more than 150 injured in protests since Saturday. Security personnel are mobilized in the cities of Sanandaj, Saqqez, and Divandareh.

The group reported “intense conflict” on Tuesday in Sanandaj, Baneh, and Saqqez, the hometown of Mahsa Amini, whose death in police custody on September 16 sparked the protests.

Amnesty International criticized the crackdown by “security forces using firearms and firing tear gas indiscriminately, including into people’s homes”.

But Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi pledged ongoing repression to “neutralize the desperate anti-revolutionary effort”. He proclaimed that the demonstrations in Kurdistan are “planned, supported, and led by separatist terror groups”, such as the Komala Party, Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK).

UPDATE 0938 GMT:

A scene from Tehran on Monday:

UPDATE 0931 GMT:

The Kurdish human rights organization Hengaw reports a heavy armed security presence on Monday across Iranian Kurdistan, the initial site of protests over compulsory hijab and the death of local woman Mahsa Amini in police custody.

Security personnel mobilized in the cities of Sanandaj, Saqqez, and Divandareh. Hengaw said at least five residents were killed and more than 150 injured in protests since Saturday.

UPDATE, OCT 11:

More than 4,000 workers in the oil and petrochemical industries have gone on strike, supporting nationwide protests over compulsory hijab and the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

The workers are from sites in southern Iran on the Persian Gulf coast including the Bushehr, Borzovieh, Hemgan, and Asaluyeh petrochemical refineries. The Abadan and Kangan oil refineries are also affected.

Workers at the Asaluyeh site made makeshift defenses of rocks and rubble and set afire objects on the streets to keep back watching security forces.

In Bushehr, the strikes chanted “Death to the Dictator”, “Death to Khamenei”, and “This Year is the Year of Blood, Seyyed Ali Khamenei is Done”.

The Council of Oil Contract Workers warned the government last week:

We will stop working and join the people if you continue killing and arresting people in their protest against compulsory hijab.

We, the workers of the oil projects, in unison with people in Iran, once again declare our anger and hatred towards the murder of Mahsa Amini at the hands of the morality police. We support the people’s fight against organized crimes against women, and growing poverty.

UPDATE 1458 GMT:

The UK has sanctioned Iran’s “morality police” and five leading political and security officials.

Those blacklisted include:

  • “Morality police” chief Mohammed Rostami Cheshmeh Gachi
  • The head of the Tehran Division, Haj Ahmed Mirzaei;
  • Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij militia;

    • Hassan Karami. the commander of the NAJA special forces of the Iranian police;

    Hossein Ashtari, the commander-in-chief of the Iranian police

    The European Parliament has also called for sanctions against security forces, condemning the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

    UPDATE 0926 GMT:

    EA correspondent Deepa Parent, writing for The Guardian, reports that Iranian children were arrested inside their schools on Sunday by security forces in vans without license plates.

    Schools and higher education institutions in Iranian Kurdistan, the initial site of protests, were shut on Sunday.

    Universities and schools have maintained the momentum of the demonstrations over compulsory hijab and the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

    Despite the crackdown, hundreds of schoolgirls and university students marched on Sunday.

    UPDATE 0921 GMT:

    More than 1,000 workers at the Bushehr and Damavand petrochemical plants in southern Iran have joined the protests.

    The workers blocked access roads and chanted slogans such as “Death to the Dictator!” on Monday. A heavy security presence monitored them.

    UPDATE, OCT 10:

    The Norway-based Iran Human Rights says at least 185 people, including 19 children, have been killed in protests over compulsory hijab and the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

    The human rights group said more than half of the victims were in Sistan and Baluchestan Province in southeast Iran, where security forces fired on worshippers at Friday prayers and on protesters outside a police station on September 29 (see entry below).

    IHR said 20 security personnel have been killed since the protests began on September 16.

    UPDATE 1638 GMT:

    There has been a flutter on social media because of this video showing Iran’s riot police joining protesters.

    The editor of a newspaper linked to Iran’s judiciary has played down any idea of police solidarity with demonstrators, saying they were merely “guiding protesters“.

    UPDATE 1632 GMT:

    Journalist Ghazal Golshiri tweetes, “Arrests started in high schools today.”

    Schoolgirls have been prominent in the past week in maintaining the momentum of the protests.

    UPDATE 1628 GMT:

    Four presenters with Iran’s State broadcaster IRIB have resigned in solidarity with protesters.

    IRIB has been airing forced confessions of detainees, including French nationals, and calling demonstrators “rioters” and “pawns of the West”.

    UPDATE 1110 GMT:

    In their Sunday meeting, the heads of the three Iranian branches of government — President Ebrahim Raisi, Parliament Speaker Mohammed-Baqer Qalibaf, and judiciary head Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei — appeared to recognize the strength of the protests.

    They said, “The Iranian society is currently in need of the unity of all classes, regardless of language, religion and ethnicity, and all elements of the country to overcome the hostility of anti-Iranians.”

    UPDATE 1059 GMT:

    An artistic image of the protests for rights and justice:

    UPDATE 1034 GMT:

    Hackers briefly took over Iranian State TV on Saturday night to highlight some of those slain by Iranian security forces, amid the protests over compulsory hijab and the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

    The photos of Amini and women killed during the demonstrations interrupted footage of the Supreme Leader meeting state officials. An image showing Khamenei in crosshairs and in flames was also shown, with the invocation to “join us and rise up”.

    UPDATE, OCT 9:

    France has advised its nationals to leave Iran as soon as possible.

    “Any French visitor, including dual nationals, is exposed to a high risk of arrest, arbitrary detention and unfair trial,” the French Foreign Ministry said on its website.

    On Thursday, Iranian authorities paraded two detained French nationals on State TV, saying they had worked with France’s intelligence services to foment protests. Paris condemned the “dictatorial practices”.

    The Netherlands has also told nationals to leave Iran immediately.

    UPDATE 1358 GMT:

    President Ebrahim Raisi tried to regain the initiative today with a speech at Al-Zahra University in Tehran.

    State media feature carefully-organized photographs from inside the building. Outside was a far different scene.

    UPDATE 1351 GMT:

    Scenes from Saturday protests across the capital Tehran:

    To the west of the capital in Karaj, women march without headscarves, chanting “Death to the Dictator”:

    UPDATE 1344 GMT:

    Two men have reportedly been killed by security forces during protests in Sanandaj, the second-largest Kurdish city in Iran.

    A man was shot in the head while in the driver’s seat in his car. Another died from a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

    Journalist Kian Sharifi notes there were “chaotic scenes” as people swore at security forces and a distraught woman shouted in Kurdish, “Dishonorable.”

    Mahsa Amini, whose death in police custody sparked the demonstrations, was from Iranian Kurdistan. Sanandaj has been a center of demonstrations, with protesters briefly taking control of city squares.

    UPDATE 1331 GMT:

    The Center for the Human Rights in Iran says at least 1,200 people have been arrested amid the protests over compulsory hijab and the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

    The arrests include at least 92 members of civil society who were seized at their homes or workplaces, following a September 22 order by Judiciary Chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei for “preventive detentions”.

    CHRI says the actual number of detentions is likely to be far higher than its estimates.

    Among those seized are at least 29 journalists, 116 university students, 20 human rights activists, 19 activists for teachers’ and labor rights; 17 artists, writers, and filmmakers; 4 defense attorneys; and 3 athletes.

    “This isn’t a crackdown, it’s an attempt to obliterate civil society,” said CHRI Hadi Ghaemi. “Iran’s government keeps revealing that it’s terrified of its own people.”

    UPDATE 1323 GMT:

    An unknown artist turned Tehran’s fountains red on Friday:

    UPDATE 1206 GMT:

    Scenes from another day of protests across Iran:

    UPDATE, OCT 8:

    EA contributor Deepa Parent writes for The Guardian about the killing of another teenage girl by Iranian security forces….

    Sarina Esmailzadeh, a 16-year-old who posted popular vlogs on YouTube, was killed when the security forces beat her with batons at a protest in Gohardasht in Alborz province on 23 September, according to Amnesty International.

    Citing a primary source, a statement by Amnesty International also claimed that Esmailzadeh’s family had been subjected to “intense harassment to coerce them into silence”, claims denied by Iranian officials.

    Esmailzadeh’s case is similar to that of Nika Shahkarami (see October 7 update). On both occasions, Iranian authorities claimed that the girls had fallen from the rooftops of buildings. Shahkarami’s family was also pressured to repeat the claims — pressure resisted by Shahkarami’s mother, who said her daughter was beaten.

    Esmailzadeh and Shahkarami were active on social media, shown singing and laughing.

    Esmailzadeh spoke about her dreams of travelling; the importance of women’s rights, including her rejection of the mandatory hijab; and her anger about the economic situation.

    UPDATE 0901 GMT:

    Iran Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has tried some novel explanations for the regime’s suppression of protests.

    In calls with Irish and Finnish counterparts, Amir-Abdollahian justified the regime’s nationwide cut-off of the Internet by arguing that US officials had done the same during the Capitol Attack of January 6, even suspending the social media accounts of Donald Trump.

    In fact, Internet and mobile phone service was not blocked, and Trump’s Twitter account was later suspended because of violation of terms of service with his incitement of attacks.

    The Foreign Minister also declared, “Not a single person has been arrested during peaceful demonstrations.”

    The Center for Human Rights in Iran has recorded more than 1,200 detentions during the three weeks of protests.

    Amur-Abdollahian did not make any recorded comment about those killed during the demonstrations.

    UPDATE 0616 GMT:

    Amnesty International reports that Iranian security forces killed at least 66 people, including children, and injured hundreds of others by firing live ammunition, metal pellets, and teargas at protesters, bystanders and worshippers in Zahedan in southeast Iran on September 30.

    Sixteen more people have been slain in other incidents in Sistan and Baluchistan Province.

    Amnesty took evidence from activists, victims’ families, and eyewitnesses as well as images and videos.

    Iranian authorities claimed that 19 people, including the head of Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence in Zahedan and his deputy, were killed. They blamed the Baluch insurgency of Jaish al-Udl, who has denied responsibility.

    The September 30 protests were to show solidarity with national demonstrations over compulsory hijab and the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody, as well as to demand accountability for the reported rape of a 15-year-old girl by a police commander.

    Amnesty describes security forces firing from the rooftop of a police station, and plain-clothed security forces shooting from the rooftops of several nearby houses. Live ammunition, metal pellets and teargas directly into the vicinity of the Mosalla prayer site near the city’s main mosque, where hundreds of people, including children and older people, were still performing Friday prayers.

    The majority of victims were shot in the head, heart, neck, and torso. Some were hit in the back of the head or the body, indicating they were facing away from the security forces.

    On October 1, Mawlana Abdolhamid Ismaeelzahi, the outspoken Sunni leader of Friday prayers in Zahedan, said in video testimony that more than 40 people were killed. He said security forces, standing on rooftops, fired live ammunition towards young protesters outside the police station and into the Mosalla towards men and women performing prayers.

    UPDATE 0607 GMT:

    The US Treasury has sanctioned seven senior officials in the Iran regime, including Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi and Communications Minister Eisa Zarepour.

    The other cited officials have high ranks in the Revolutionary Guards or security services.

    Vahidi was already sanctioned since June 2010 because of his involvement in Iran’s nuclear program. He also allegedly oversaw the 1996 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association building in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which killed 85 people and wounded hundreds.

    UPDATE, OCT 7:

    The mother of 16-year-old Nika Shakarami says her daughter was killed by Iranian security forces.

    Nasrin Shahkarami said Nika died from multiple blows to her head. Nina’s sister was forced to repeat the claim of Iranian authorities that Nika fell from the roof of a building, and that she is under pressure to do so well.

    News of Shakarami’s death has spread across social media, with a video (see below) showing her singing and laughing.

    Nika’s mother and aunt saw her nose was smashed and her head injured. The official death certificate also contradicts the narrative of authorities, citing the cause as “multiple blows caused by a hard object”.

    Nika’s family say her body was stolen by security forces and only returned on October 1, 10 days after she went missing. Her family planned to bury her in the western city of Khorramabad, but the security services interred her in her father’s village without seeking permission.

    Nika’s aunt and uncle were later arrested. On Wednesday night her aunt was displayed on State TV saying Nika had been “thrown” from a multi-story building close to her house.

    Nasrin Shahkarami said her sister Atash “had been forced to make the confessions and broadcast them”. She added:

    We expected them to say whatever they wanted to exonerate themselves… and they have in fact implicated themselves.

    I probably don’t need to try that hard to prove they’re lying….My daughter was killed in the protests on the same day that she disappeared.

    Nika was last seen on September 21, a day when Iranian security forces killed scores of protesters after an order from the General Headquarters of the Armed Forces to “severely confront” protesters, described as “troublemakers and anti-revolutionaries”.

    UPDATE 0941 GMT:

    A scene from a girls’ school:

    UPDATE 0932 GMT:

    Iranian authorities have now seized 35 journalists during the protests.

    UPDATE 0925 GMT:

    The BBC’s summary of the protests, based on analysis of more than 1,000 videos on social media:

    Iranian authorities have tried to counter by displaying two detained French nationals on State TV, claiming they were working for French intelligence services to foment the protests.

    UPDATE 0909 GMT:

    Iran has lashed out at the possibility of European Union sanctions, amid the regime’s attempt to suppress the protests over compulsory hijab and the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

    Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told EU foreign policy head Josep Borrell during their call, “If the European Union seeks to take any rash political measures based on baseless accusations and in order to encourage rioters and terrorists that have targeted the Iranian people’s lives and assets, it should know that we would take reciprocal action.”

    Amir-Abdollahian pledged an ongoing crackdown, “We will take decisive legal action against rioters and terrorists in line with the law.”

    Borrell has said that the EU will “consider all the options at its disposal”.

    The Foreign Minister also issued the threat to Italian counterpart Luigi di Maio on Wednesday.

    An Italian woman was arrested by Iranian security personnel last week. She told her father of the detention on September 28, but there has been no news since then.

    UPDATE 0859 GMT:

    Human Rights Watch has compiled a list of 47 people killed, most by shooting, during the protests.

    The victims include nine children and six women.

    The rights organization summarizes, “Iranian authorities have ruthlessly cracked down on widespread anti-government protests with excessive and lethal force throughout Iran.”

    HRW documented security forces unlawfully using excessive or lethal force against protesters in 13 cities across Iran.

    Videos showed security forces using shotguns, assault rifles, and handguns against protesters in largely peaceful and often crowded settings, altogether killing and injuring hundreds. In some cases, they shot at people who were running away.

    HRW is calling on the international community “to increase pressure on Iran” for “a United Nations-led independent inquiry into serious abuses committed during the protests” with “avenues for holding those responsible to account”.

    UPDATE, OCT 6:

    Iranian security forces have deployed at universities, trying to suppress protests over compulsory hijab and the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

    Witnesses reported riot police in Urmia, Tabriz, Rasht, and the capital Tehran.

    A student said, “There are lots of security forces around Tehran University. I am even scared to leave the campus. Lots of police vans are waiting outside to arrest students.”

    UPDATE 0845 GMT:

    Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have again attacked Kurdish camps in northern Iraq.

    Iranian officials are trying to blame the Kurds for the protests over compulsory hijab and the death of Mahsa Amini, who was born and lived in Iranian Kurdistan, in police custody.

    The Guards said they struck Sidekan, north of Erbil, in Kurdistan region on Tuesday with multiple rocket launchers, precision-strike weapons, and drones.

    An earlier attack killed at least nine people, including women and children, and injured at least 35.

    UPDATE 0759 GMT:

    President Ebrahim Raisi has acknowledged “weaknesses and shortcomings” while appealing to Iranians to rally against protests over compulsory hijab and the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

    “Today the country’s determination is aimed at cooperation to reduce people’s problems,” he told Parlimaent. “Unity and national integrity are necessities that render our enemy hopeless.”

    UPDATE 0713 GMT:

    Video of 17-year-old Nika Shakarami, killed in the regime crackdown on protesters, singing and laughing:

    UPDATE, OCT 5:

    The Washington Post has analyzed hundreds of videos and photographs to establish the extent of the Iranian regime’s crackdown on protesters.

    Also interviewing protesters and human rights activists and reviewing data from Internet monitors, the Post geolocates videos of protests in at least 22 cities. They cover all of Iran from the Kurdistan region in the northwest to the capital Tehran to Rasht on the Caspian coast in the north to Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf in the south.

    The investigation examines the use of live ammunition by security forces, targeted arrests, and the throttling of the Internet.

    Security personnel fired on a protest and caused casualties in the Kordestan Province on September 17, the day after demonstrations were sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody. Three days later, officers fired pistols in the air and at retreating crowds in Rasht. And on September 23, an officer in army fatigues fired an AK-47 in Tehran.

    Protesters from Marivan and Balo in western Iran confirmed the killing of demonstrators by live fire.

    “Security forces fired directly at the people in Darai Square [on October 1],” said the protester in Marivan. “They had no intention to arrest or to calm the situation. They only wanted to shoot.”

    Five videos establish the pattern of arrests, and Internet traffic data establishes the cutoff of the Internet from September 21 — the night with the majority of killings by security personnel so far.

    UPDATE 0807 GMT:

    In a statement carefully designed to avoid the wrath of Iran’s authorities, Hassan Khomeini — the grandson of the Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Khomeini — has called on protesters to refrain from violence while calling on the regime to open up political and social space.

    UPDATE, OCT 4:

    Images are circulating of schoolgirls removing their hijab and challenging the Iranian regime:

    UPDATE 1537 GMT:

    Canada has sanctioned 25 Iranian individuals and nine entities, including the Revolutionary Guards and the “morality police”.

    Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly issued a statement:

    UPDATE 1110 GMT:

    The Supreme Leader has issued his first remarks on the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

    In remarks to graduating police cadets, he said, “The young girl’s death was a tragic incident that saddened us too.”

    However, he immediately switched to denigration of the protests over Amini and compulsory hijab, portraying the demonstrations as a violent insurrection “planned” by foreigners.

    He then stigmatized anyone supporting the demonstrations, “Some individuals are against stating that certain events were designed and carried out by the enemy. They stand up to defend US and Zionist intelligence services, and they use fallacious analysis & rhetoric to deny it was the work of the enemy.”

    UPDATE 1000 GMT: In his latest comment on the protests over compulsory hijab and the death of Mahsa Amini, President Ebrahim Raisi has complained to the Supreme Council for the Promotion and Development of the Culture of Sacrifice and Martyrdom:

    Although in Iran the issue of Miss Amini’s death is being followed up completely and carefully and all the officials have emphasised it, but at the same time, the enemy is trying to divert public opinion by preparing extensive media measures, while a group of Afghan girls are killed in a school by American-backed terrorist groups, and there is no reaction from these self-proclaimed activists! In such a situation, is it acceptable to claim to pursue human rights and women’s rights on the part of Westerners”?

    Raisi claimed, “When the Islamic Republic was overcoming economic problems and becoming more active in the region and the world, the enemies entered the field with the intention of isolating the country, but they failed in this conspiracy as well.”

    UPDATE 0912 GMT:

    The Iranian currency has sunk to an all-time low, amid ongoing protests and stalled nuclear talks.

    The rial stands at 334,200:1 v. the US dollar, breaking the 332,000:1 level of June 12.

    UPDATE 0848 GMT:

    The latest arrests by Iran’s security forces include prominent activist Bahareh Hedayat.

    A leading student campaigner, Hedayat has been detained repeatedly. In 2010, she was sentenced to 9 1/2 years for “anti-state propaganda”.

    She was again seized for protesting over the Iranian military’s downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet in January 2020, killing 176 passengers and crew, and sentenced to 4 years and 8 months in prison.

    The latest journalists detained include Alborz Nezami, a reporter with Iran’s top economic daily, and Shahram Azmoudeh.

    More than 20 journalists have been detained since the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody on September 16.

    UPDATE 0833 GMT:

    Security forces have reportedly attacked a sit-in by students of Sharif University of Technology in Tehran.

    Witnesses said security personnel beat the students and fired tear gas and weapons. There are no recorded fatalities so far, but the “many” injured could not be taken to hospital.

    Students appealed on social media, “Do not allow the security forces to kill and arrest us.” Concerned family members rushed to the campus as drivers honked their horns.

    Some media report that Science Research, and Technology Mohammad Ali Zolfigol, a professor of chemistry, later visited the university trying to calm the situation.

    University officials subsequently said that classes will be online until further notice.

    UPDATE 0831 GMT:

    Iran Wire has published details and photographs of some of those killed by security forces during Iran’s protests since September 16.

    UPDATE 0813 GMT:

    Amnesty International has published an update on the Iranian regime’s crackdown on protests over compulsory hijab and the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody, including leaked official documents setting out the approach.

    In one document, dated September 21, the General Headquarters of Armed Forces orders commanders in all provinces to “severely confront” protesters, described as “troublemakers and anti-revolutionaries”.

    That evening, security forces killed dozens of demonstrators, Amnesty notes.

    In a September 23 document, the commander in Mazandaran Province in northern Iran orders security forces to “confront [protesters] mercilessly…going as far as causing deaths in any unrest by rioters and anti-Revolutionaries”.

    Amnesty recorded the names of 52 people killed between September 19 and September 25 by Iran’s security forces. The victims include five women, one girl, and five boys.

    The organization adds, “The real death toll, including the number of children killed, is higher, and [we are] continuing [our] investigations to identify victims.”

    Speaking with victims’ relatives and eyewitnesses, Amnesty establishes that Iranian officials are “intimidating and harassing the families of those killed during the protests and/or promising them financial compensation in order to coerce them to video-record statements attributing responsibility of the killings of their
    loved-ones to ‘rioters’ working for ‘enemies’ of the Islamic Republic of Iran”.

    Amnesty also takes apart regime claims that security forces are the primary victims in the protests, detailing “inaccuracies in the official narrative” in four of the 11 deaths of personnel claimed by Iranian authorities between September 21 and 24.

    UPDATE, OCT 3:

    A scene from Kermanshah in western Iran on Sunday:

    Isfahan University of Technology on Monday:

    UPDATE 1159 GMT:

    In a Saturday night meeting, the three heads of branches of the Iran Government — President Ebrahim Raisi, Parliament Speaker Mohammed-Baqer Qalibaf, and judiciary head Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei — “called for an intelligent and serious role of the responsible institutions in order to calm the country, deal with riots, and protect public order and security”, according to a statement from Raisi’s office.

    The three men “emphasized the necessity of recognising and explaining the conspiracies of the anti-Iranians and the enemies of the Islamic Revolution”.

    UPDATE 1151 GMT:

    Amid stalled nuclear talks and the protests across the country, Iran’s currency is near an all-time low.

    The rial is at 331,800:1 v. the US dollar, just off the 332,000:1 level of June 12.

    UPDATE 1130 GMT:

    Scene from Tehran:

    UPDATE 0746 GMT:

    The detained leader of Iran’s Green Movement, Mir Hossein Mousavi, has issued an appeal to the Iranian military to refrain from attacks on protests and to stand with the demonstrations for rights.

    Armed forces! The powers vested in you are for defense of the people, not their repression; for protection of the innocent, not service to the powerful and despots.

    The hope is that you will stand on the side of truth and nation.

    Mousavi was the leading candidate in the disputed 2009 Presidential election, “won” by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with the support of the Supreme Leader’s office. Millions of Iranians protested as the regime tried to decapitate the opposition with mass detentions.

    The regime imposed strict house arrests in February 2011 on Mousavi; his wife, activist and artist Zahra Rahnavard; and former Speaker of Parliament and 2009 Presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi.

    ORIGINAL ENTRY: Now in their third week, protests over compulsory hijab and the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody continue to defy the repression of Iran’s regime.

    Amini died in hospital on September 16. She never came out of a coma after she was reportedly beaten by “morality police” who seized her three days earlier for “inappropriate hijab”.

    Demonstrators took to the streets across Iran, including in the capital and in Amini’s home region of Kordestan in the northwest of the country, soon after her death was confirmed.

    See also UPDATES: Iran’s Protests Over Compulsory Hijab and the Death of Mahsa Amini

    Iran’s Mahsa Amini Protests: “This Time, We Won’t Back Down. They Can’t Kill All of Us”

    Iran’s authorities mobilized security forces who have killed scores of protesters. They carried out arrests of demonstrators, journalists, artists, athletes, and activists. The Internet has been restricted while the regime tried to mobilize counter-protests.

    But far from dissipating, the protests showed renewed strength on Saturday, including women taking off their hijab, university students, and football fans:

    A rally in Isfahan:

    Rallies Through The Night

    On Saturday evening, demonstrators celebrated, chanted “Death to the Dictator” about Ayatollah Khamenei, and challenged rumors that Mojtaba Khamenei will take over as Supreme Leader from his 83-year-old father: