The look of correspondent Mahsa Amini, a new symbol of young Iranian women
Iran The challenge of removing the veil
At least
17 people have died
in the protests that have shaken
Iran
for six days over the
death of Mahsa Amini
after being
detained by morality police for improperly wearing the veil
, Iranian state television announced Thursday.
"17 people have died, including police officers, in the incidents of recent days," said 'IRIB' television, which has stated that it is their count and that they are not government data.
So far,
authorities have confirmed the deaths of eight people
, including three members of the security forces.
The Oslo-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR) has raised the death toll to
31 dead
.
With shouts such as
"Justice, freedom and no to compulsory hijab"
, "Women, life, freedom" or
"Death to the dictator"
, protesters have shown their outrage in at least 20 cities in the country, in protests in which the violence has escalated with security forces resorting to riot gear.
In the clashes last night, protesters burned at least two police stations and several vehicles.
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Videos shared on Twitter by activists and journalists have shown protests in numerous cities across the country, but their authenticity has not been verified.
In the northwestern city of Rasht, an elderly woman has marched without a veil while shouting "Death to the dictator", one of the videos showed.
Other videos have shown women burning veils
, images that have become symbols of the protests.
INTERNET OUTAGES
The government
has blocked the mobile internet almost completely
and limited applications such as Whatsapp and Instagram in an apparent attempt to control the protests.
Communications status has improved this morning, but by Thursday afternoon, it has started failing again.
Social networks, especially Twitter, are playing an important role, with protesters posting hundreds of videos on them.
Faced with this situation, the powerful
Revolutionary Guard of Iran has described this Thursday the protests as "sedition"
and has asked the Judiciary to prosecute those who "disseminate rumors and lies" on social networks and in the streets.
A petition to which the ultraconservative newspaper 'Kayhan' has joined, whose director is chosen by the supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, who has criticized the Judiciary for apparently not condemning anyone for the protests.
"Show no mercy on these criminals," the newspaper has asked.
Amini was arrested by the so-called
morality police
in Tehran, where she was visiting, and
was taken to a police station to attend "an hour of re-education"
for wearing the veil wrong.
He died three days later in a hospital where he arrived in a coma after suffering a heart attack that the authorities have attributed to health problems, something rejected by the family.
His father
, in an interview with 'BBC Persian',
believes that the authorities are lying about the cause of death
, because every time he was approached by the press about this issue, the broadcast was suddenly cut off.
In addition, he has denounced that the authorities
did not let him see his daughter while she was in the hospital
.
Something he could only do before her funeral, noting that except for her face and feet, her entire body was bandaged.
His death has managed to galvanize thousands of Iranians through pain and empathy, unlike other occasions when the demonstrations were reduced to fragmented social groups mobilized by the economy.
The authorities insist that
the protests are incited by the "foreign enemy"
with the intervention of embassies and intelligence services of other countries.
The president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisí, will return to Tehran from New York, where he has given a speech before the UN General Assembly, on a day in which the authorities plan marches in support of the regime.
SANCTIONS
For its part, the United States
has imposed this Thursday economic sanctions on the morality police
.
The US Treasury has said that the morality police were "responsible" for Amini's death and has based the sanctions on "the abuse and violence against Iranian women and the violation of the rights of peaceful Iranian protesters".
"Mahsa Amini was a courageous woman whose death in police custody was
another act of brutality by the Iranian regime's security forces against her own people
," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.
"We condemn this unconscionable act in the strongest terms and call on the Iranian government to end its violence against women and its violent crackdown on freedom of expression and assembly," he said in a statement.
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