From the Liveblog of
Sunday, October 30, 2022
Iran protesters hold fresh rallies, defying warning by Revolutionary Guards
PARIS — Iranian protesters rally again, defying an order by the powerful Revolutionary Guards to stop the demonstrations — now in their seventh week — sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini.
Students gathered overnight and today across Iran, even after Major General Hossein Salami, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, had warned demonstrators: “Do not come to the streets!”
Amini, 22, died in custody on September 16 after her arrest in Tehran for an alleged breach of Iran’s strict dress rules for women, triggering a wave of unrest and a state response on the “riots” that Amnesty International calls a “brutal crackdown.”
Security forces today fired gunshots and tear gas at a gathering of students in the flashpoint western city of Sanandaj, where videos showed billowing clouds of smoke amid chants of “freedom,” the Norway-based Hengaw organization reports.
It also posts a video with the sound of echoing gunfire, and of a 12-year-old girl wailing with her bloody arm peppered with metal pellets, in reports AFP cannot independently verify.
Security forces have struggled to contain the protests, which started with women taking to the streets and burning their hijab headscarves and which have evolved into a broader campaign to end the Islamic Republic founded in 1979.
