The UN demanded on Tuesday, November 15 the immediate release of thousands of people arrested in Iran for having participated in peaceful demonstrations which have punctuated the country for two months and denounced increasingly harsh sentences.

"We urge the authorities to immediately release all those detained in connection with peaceful protests and drop the charges against them," OHCHR's spokesperson said at the regular UN briefing in Geneva. , Jeremy Laurence on Tuesday.

“Human rights protect the rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression,” he added.

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights protests against "the authorities who respond to these unprecedented protests with increasing harshness", underlined Jeremy Laurence.

First protester sentenced to death

On Sunday, an Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran sentenced to death an anonymous protester found guilty of "war on God" and "corruption on earth", "for allegedly damaging public property", indicates the High Commission, recalling that the death penalty should be reserved "for crimes of extreme gravity involving the will to kill".

According to Jeremy Laurence, "at least nine other protesters have been charged on charges which all carry the death penalty."

At least 326 protesters have been killed in the crackdown on the protest movement that has rocked the country since September, Iran Human Rights, an Oslo-based NGO, said on Saturday. 

More than 2,000 people have been charged in two months, according to Iranian justice.

Human rights organizations abroad report 15,000 arrests, a figure disputed by the authorities.

Iran has been the scene of protests since the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, arrested three days earlier by vice squad for violating the Islamic Republic's strict dress code.

The protest, part of the rejection of the dress restrictions imposed on women and the indignation raised by the death of the young woman, evolved into a movement directed against the theocracy in power in Iran since the Islamic revolution of 1979.

New events 

Against this backdrop, the call to commemorate those killed in the crackdown on the 2019 protests, which erupted to the day three years ago, sparked further protests on Tuesday.  

In Tehran, the din of car horns rang out as protesters blocked a large roundabout, Sanat Square, shouting "Freedom, freedom", according to online videos verified by AFP.

"This year is the year of blood, Seyed Ali will be overthrown," chanted a large crowd outside a Tehran metro station, in an AFP-verified video, referring to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei .

People also flocked to the streets of other cities, including Bandar Abbas and Shiraz, where women were seen peacefully waving their headscarves above their heads.

Workers dismantled their tools and university students boycotted classes in western Iran's Kurdistan province, where Masha Amini is from, human rights group Hengaw, based in Iran, said. in Oslo.

With AFP and Reuters

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