Protesters in Zahedan in southeast Iran, October 28, 2022

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UPDATE 1423 GMT:

Protests continue at Iranian universities on Monday.

Tehran’s Beheshti University:

The School of Pharmacology at Rasht University in northern Iran:

The Medical Faculty at Tabriz University:

UPDATE 1417 GMT:

A scene from Sanandaj, the heart of more than six weeks of protests across Iran:

And from Marivan:

UPDATE 1316 GMT:

Internal documents describe tools for Iranian officials to disrupt protests by manipulating mobile phone communications.

The documents, given to The Intercept, detail the SIAM web program used by the Iranian Communications Regulatory Authority. The program has a menu of remote commands which can slow data connections to a crawl; break the encryption of calls; track the movements of individuals or groups; and produce detailed metadata summaries of who spoke to whom, when, and where.

All Iranian telecom operators must give direct access to their systems to the Communications Regulatory Authority.

UPDATE 0833 GMT:

More than 300 Iranian journalists have called for the release of colleagues Niloofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, imprisoned for their coverage of Mahsa Amini’s death and funeral.

The appeal was made in a statement published by Etemad and other newspapers on Sunday.

Hamedi took a photo of Amini’s parents hugging each other in a Tehran hospital as their daughter lay in a coma after her detention and reported beating by “morality police”.

Mohammadi covered Amini’s funeral in her hometown Saqqez in Iranian Kurdistan, where protests began.

On Friday, a joint statement by Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence organization attacked Hamedi and Mohammadi — without evidence — of being CIA agents.

Iranian authorities have detained more than 40 journalists during the protests.

UPDATE 0824 GMT:

Following the declaration of the Revolutionary Guards’ commander Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami of Saturday as “the last day” of protests, another senior Guards officer has issued a warning to demonstrators.

The Guards heads in Khorasan Province in northeast Iran, Brig. Gen. Mohammadreza Mahdavi, declared:

So far, Basijis [militia] have shown restraint and they have been patient.

“But it will get out of our control if the situation continues.

Human rights organizations say 283 protesters, including 44 children, have been slain by security forces. More than 14,000 people have been arrested, including 253 students, in protests across 132 cities and towns and 122 universities.

UPDATE 0819 GMT:

The European Union is considering classification of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in a televised interview Sunday, “I made it clear last week that we will launch another package of sanctions, that we will examine how we can also list the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization.”

UPDATE, OCT 31:

The Guardian has published an interactive map and videos of the spread of protests across Iran from September 16 to October 20.

UPDATE 2117 GMT:

Security forces have reportedly abducted Professor Dariush Farhoud, the 85-year-old father of genetics in Iran.

Farhoud was taken from his home on Sunday morning. He had criticized the regime for its violation of women’s rights.

UPDATE 1703 GMT:

Basij militiamen fire at students at a university in northern Tehran:

Women at Azad University in Qazvin cut off their hair and remember Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody, and teenager Nika Shahkarami, killed by security forces: “We don’t want classes, we want Mahsa and Nika!”

Khayyam University in Mashhad:

UPDATE 1658 GMT:

Students at the Medicine Faculty of Hormozgan University in southern Iran take down the wall separating men and women in the canteen.

UPDATE 1653 GMT:

The scene at Sanandaj University in Iranian Kurdistan, the center of national protests over the past 45 days.

At Tehran University, chants of “Death to the Dictator”:

UPDATE 1646 GMT:

Iranian authorities have arrested rapper and activist Toomaj Salehi, a prominent supporter of protests through his music and social media posts. He had asked officials to release political prisoners.

Salehi’s cousin said the rapper and his friends were seized by up to 50 agents in the Gerd-Bisheh area in Chahrmahal and Bakhtyari Province in southwestern Iran.

UPDATE 0910 GMT:

University students challenge men trying to break up a mixed-gender gathering.

UPDATE 0902 GMT:

According to an Iranian Government document, obtained by IranWire, at least 175,000 people participated in protests from September 16 to mid-October.

The average age of those arrested by police is 17. About 2,000 demonstrators were detained and 1,700 released by mid-October. About 90% were in police custody for the first time.

Most said they protested to “overthrow” the Islamic Republic: “We have nothing to lose.”

UPDATE 0837 GMT:

The family of 19-year-old chef Mehrdad Shahidi says they are being pressured to deny he was beaten to death in detention.

The killing of Shahidi by Iranian security forces on Wednesday sparked further protests in Arak in western Iran.

The teenager had skull injuries. His parents said, “Our son lost his life as a result of receiving baton blows to his head after his arrest, but we have been under pressure by the regime to say that he died of a heart attack.”

Shahidi had built up a following of 25,000 on Instagram with videos of his cooking.

UPDATE 0727 GMT:

With students prominent in nationwide protests, President Ebrahim Raisi has told university presidents:

The most important precondition for such dialogues is the correct understanding of issues. If the issues are not analyzed well, they will be affected by the atmosphere created by the media and the cyberspace, leading to error.

UPDATE, OCT 30:

Protesters across Iran have defied the regime’s declaration that Saturday “is the last day” of the demonstrations over compulsory hijab and the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

In Tehran:

In Arak in western Iran:

At a university in Karaj near Tehran:

UPDATE 1227 GMT:

Scenes from Iranian universities on Saturday:

UPDATE 1214 GMT:

Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence department have issued a statement targeting detained journalists Niloufar Hamidi and Elahe Mohammadi as “foreign agents”.

Hamidi published the photo of the comatose Mahsa Amini, whose death in police custody triggered nationwide protests.

The Iranian agencies declared that Hamidi is “among the people trained in special courses abroad”: “Using the cover of a journalist, she was one of the first people who arrived at the hospital and provoked the relatives of the deceased and published targeted news.”

They assailed Mohammadi as being “trained by the American mafia regime in foreign countries”: “She instantly attended the funeral ceremony of Mahsa Amini in her birthplace Saqqez to provoke her relatives by circulating the news and images of the funeral ceremony, and burial.”

The statement gave no evidences for its allegations.

UPDATE 1157 GMT:

Kurdish human rights group Hengaw says Iranian security forces shot at students at a girl’s school in Saqqez in Iranian Kurdistan.

The group said security personnel also opened fire on students at the Kurdistan University of Medical Science, in the provincial capital of Sanandaj. Several students were injured, one of them shot in the head.

The head of the Revolutionary Guards, Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, blustered on Saturday, “Do not come to the streets! Today is the last day of the riots. This sinister plan, is a plan hatched…in the White House and the Zionist regime.

UPDATE 1026 GMT:

Baton-wielding Basiji militiamen chase people on Friday night:

UPDATE 1021 GMT:

The Human Rights Activists News Agency reports that at least 272 Iranians, including 39 children, have been killed by security forces during nationwide protests.

Almost 14,000 people have been detained, with protests in 139 cities and towns.

Iranian officials say 34 security personnel have been slain.

UPDATE 1002 GMT:

Protests continue across Iranian Kurdistan in the northwest of the country, despite deadly repression by security forces.

Among the locations on Friday was Mahabad, where at least four people have been killed this week.

UPDATE 0954 GMT:

The UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has criticized Iranian officials over mass detentions and abuse of the relatives of slain demonstrators.

“We’ve seen a lot of ill treatment…but also harassment of the families of protesters,” spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.

Iranian authorities have warned families not to speak out, and have refused to return the bodies of victims.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric added, “We condemn all incidents that have resulted in death or serious injury to protesters and reiterate that security forces must avoid all unnecessary or disproportionate use of force against peaceful protesters.”

He added, “Those responsible must be held to account.”

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Iran’s security forces have again slain protesters in Zahedan in the southeast of the country, four weeks after killing at least 66 worshippers and demonstrators.

The forces again opened fire after Friday prayers. At least seven people, including a 12-year-old boy, were reportedly killed.

Friday’s demonstrations were part of the nationwide protests entering a seventh week over compulsory hijab and the death of Mahsa Amini in custody after she was seized by “morality police”.

The protests in Zahedan, in Sistan and Baluchestan Province on the border with Pakistan, have also been fed by anger at discrimination against the Baluch and Sunni communities and abuses by local agencies. Another catalyst was the accusation that a senior Revolutionary Guard official raped a local woman.

“They are hitting the people with the bullets of war,” said one man amid the violence of the security forces on Friday. Another held up a handful of spent assault-rifle shell casings.

Shir-Ahmed Shirani, editor of the ethnic Baluch human rights website Halvash, said the seven victims included two children. At least 50 other people were injured but had been barred by security forces from entering hospitals.

“As soon as the worshippers left the mosque, the gunmen opened fire,” he said.

“Officials Are Not Listening”

Molavi Abdolhamid, the city’s Friday Prayers leader and the senior Sunni cleric in Iran, has said the Supreme Leader and other officials were “responsible before God” for the repression of protests and the killings. He declared on Monday:

One positive thing that we can take from the events is that many people have shed their fears.

Unfortunately, officials are not listening. For 43 years we’ve been shouting for the [rights of] Sunnis and the Baluch who are the owners of this land and have been defending the area.

On Thursday, provincial authorities suddenly fired Zahedan’s chief of police and another senior officer due to “deficiencies” that led to the violence on September 30. They admitted that police had been responsible for the deaths of up to 35 people, including some leaving Friday prayers.

But authorities deployed more security personnel to Zahedan this week, hoping to contain the protests. Pro-regime clerics assailed Abdolhamid, prompting tribal elders to gather on Thursday night at Zahedan’s Makki Mosque to show support for their Friday Prayers leader.

As usual, regime media blamed “rioters” after Friday’s killings.