Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi appealed for national unity on Tuesday and sought to calm anger against the country’s rulers, as weeks of protests critical of the government continued to spread to universities and institutes.
Raisi acknowledged that the Islamic Republic had “weaknesses and shortcomings” but repeated the official line that the riots sparked last month by the death of a woman in the custody of the country’s moral police was nothing more than a plot by enemies of Iran.
“Today the determination of the country is aimed at cooperation to reduce the problems of the people,” he said in a session of the Parliament. “National unity and integrity are necessities that make our enemy hopeless.”
The protests, which arose in response to the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code, have engulfed dozens of cities across the country and s ‘have become the most widespread challenge to Iran’s leadership in years. A series of festering crises have helped fuel public anger, including the country’s political repression, ailing economy and global isolation.
The extent of the ongoing unrest, the most sustained in more than a decade, is unclear, with witnesses reporting spontaneous gatherings across the country with small acts of defiance: protesters shouting slogans from rooftops, cutting themselves hair and burning handkerchiefs mandated by the state.
“A Background of Discontent”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attends the graduation ceremony of a group of armed forces cadets at Tehran’s police academy on Monday. Khamenei responded publicly on Monday to Iran’s biggest protests in years, breaking weeks of silence to condemn what he called “riots” and accused the US and Israel of planning the protests. (Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran/The Associated Press)
The hard-line newspaper Kayhan tried on Tuesday to downplay the scale of the movement, saying that “the anti-revolutionaries”, or those opposed to the Islamic Republic, “are in the absolute minority, possibly one percent”.
But another hardline newspaper, the Jomhuri Eslami daily, cast doubt on the government’s claims that foreign countries were to blame for the country’s unrest.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini blamed the United States and Israel for inciting the unrest on Monday, while the government has also blamed the unrest on Kurdish opposition groups in the northwest of the country. country
“Neither foreign enemies nor domestic opposition can bring cities into a state of unrest without a background of discontent,” the editorial said.
Iran’s security forces have tried to disperse the demonstrations with tear gas, metal pellets and, in some cases, live fire, rights groups say. Iranian state television reports that violent clashes between protesters and police have killed at least 41 people, but human rights groups say the number is much higher.
A growing crackdown on the press, with dozens of journalists arrested in recent weeks, has stifled most independent reporting on sensitive issues such as the deaths of protesters.
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The recent disappearance and death of a 17-year-old girl in Tehran, however, has sparked an explosion of anger on Iranian social media.
Nika Shahkarami, who lived in the capital with her mother, disappeared one night last month during protests in Tehran, her uncle Kianoush Shakarami told the Tasnim news agency.
She was missing for a week before her lifeless body was found on a street in Tehran and returned to her family, Tasnim reported, adding that relatives had not received official news about how she died.
Iranian activists based abroad allege he died in police custody, with hundreds of people circulating his photo and using his name as an online hashtag for the protest movement. Western Lorestan province prosecutor Dariush Shahoonvand denied any wrongdoing by authorities and said Shahkarami was buried in her village on Monday.
“Foreign enemies have tried to create a tense atmosphere after this incident,” Hamshari told the newspaper, without elaborating on what happened.
The protests spread to universities
With the start of the new school year this week, demonstrations are spreading to college campuses, long considered sanctuaries in times of unrest. Videos on social media showed students expressing their solidarity with colleagues who had been arrested and calling for an end to the Islamic Republic. Stunned by the unrest, many universities have moved classes online this week.
Tehran’s prestigious Sharif University of Technology turned into a battlefield on Sunday as security forces surrounded the campus from all sides and fired tear gas at protesters who were holed up inside a parking lot, preventing them from to go out.
In a video on Monday, students at Tehran’s Tarbiat Modares University marched and chanted, “The imprisoned students must be freed!” In another, students marched through Khayyam University in the conservative city of Mashhad, shouting: “Sharif University has become a prison! Evin prison has become a university!” — referring to Iran’s notorious prison in Tehran.
Protests also appeared to take over gender-segregated high schools across Iran, where groups of young schoolgirls waved their hijabs and chanted “Woman! Life! Freedom!” in the town of Karaj, west of the capital, and in the Kurdish town of Sanandaj on Monday, according to widely shared images.
An image obtained by Agence France-Presse outside Iran on September 21 shows Iranian protesters taking to the streets of the capital Tehran during a protest for Mahsa Amini, days after she died in police custody. (AFP/Getty Images)
The response by Iran’s security forces has drawn widespread condemnation. On Monday, US President Joe Biden said his administration was “gravely concerned by reports of escalating violent repression”.
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said that “the violence unleashed on the protests in Iran by the security forces is truly shocking.”
Untold numbers of protesters have been rounded up by security forces, as well as artists who have supported the protests. Local officials report at least 1,500 arrests.
Shervin Hajipour, a singer who became a protest icon for his popular song inspired by Amini’s death, was arrested last week. His lawyer said he was released on bail on Tuesday and reunited with his family in the northern city of Babolsar.
In his sad ballad, “For the sake of,” he sings about why Iranians are rising up in protest.
“To dance in the street,” he intones. “For my sister, for your sister, for our sisters.”