Appointment of a new chief of the Iranian police in the midst of the protests

An archive photo of previous protests in Iran.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed on Saturday a new chief of the Iranian police after the end of the duties of its current commander, in a move that comes in the midst of the protests that the country has been witnessing for months, in the wake of the death of the young woman, Mahsa Amini.

Khamenei appointed Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Radan, commander of the police, to succeed Brigadier General Hossein Ashtari, who has held the position since 2015, according to a message published on the guide's website.

Radan, born in 1963, previously held the position of Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Police between 2008 and 2014.

In 2010, the US Treasury included him on the sanctions list for "violations of human rights" on the sidelines of the 2009 protests that followed the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

He succeeded Ashtari Radan as deputy police officer in 2014, before being promoted to chief a few months later.

For his part, Radan supervised the Center for Strategic Studies of the Police.

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