TEHRAN —
Iran has for the first time
reported that more than 300 people have died in over two months of protests
sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.
اضافة اعلان
The Islamic republic has deployed state security
forces against what it labels “riots” that broke out after the 22-year-old died
on September 16, three days after her arrest for allegedly breaching Iran’s
dress code for women.
“Everyone in the
country has been affected by the death of this lady,” said Brig. Gen. Amirali
Hajizadeh of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in a video published
by the Mehr news agency.
“I don’t have the latest figures, but I think we
have had perhaps more than 300 martyrs and people killed,” among them some of “the
best sons of the country”, said Hajizadeh, head of the Guards’ aerospace
division.
The Iranian toll includes those who have taken to
the streets as well as dozens of police, troops and Basij paramilitary force
members who have died in clashes with demonstrators or who were killed
elsewhere.
The latest official toll is much closer to figures
published by human rights groups based abroad.
Oslo-based non-governmental organization Iran Human
Rights said at least 448 people had been “killed by security forces in the
ongoing nationwide protests”, in an updated toll issued on Tuesday.
The group says its toll includes those killed in
violence related to the Amini protests and in distinct unrest in the
southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan, which borders Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
Hijab rules
Thousands of Iranians and
around 40 foreigners have been arrested and more than 2,000 people have been
charged, according to judicial authorities.
Among these, six have been sentenced to death, with
their appeals set to be heard by the supreme court.
One more man, identified as Majid Rahnavard, went on
trial Tuesday accused of stabbing to death two Basij members in the
northeastern city of Mashhad on November 17, Mizan Online reported.
He faces the death penalty if found guilty of
killing the pair who, Iranian media reported, had tried to intervene against
“rioters threatening businesses to force them to close”.
Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 that overthrew
the monarchy, Iranian law has required all women to wear modest dress and a
hijab head covering that conceals their hair, rules enforced by morality police
squads that patrol public places.
In the past two decades, however, many women,
especially in Tehran and other major cities, have shown more of their hair, before
the rules were tightened again — a flashpoint issue in the protests.
Iran has blamed its enemies for the civil unrest,
pointing at the US, other Western powers, and Israel, as well as exiled Iranian
Kurdish opposition groups based in northern Iraq whom it has hit with repeated
missile and drone strikes.
Amid the heightened tensions, Iran’s national
football team will play the US side at the World Cup in Qatar on Tuesday — a
match seen as highly political between two countries that have had no diplomatic
relations since 1980.
Iran’s judiciary Tuesday announced the release of
more than 1,100 detainees in 20 provinces, including protesters, following
Iran’s World Cup win Friday against Wales, its Mizan Online website reported.
The site also reported Tuesday the release on bail
of former national football team goalkeeper Parviz Boroumand.
Boroumand had been arrested in mid-November during
protests in Tehran, Iranian media outlets reported.
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