Pro-government people rally against recent protest rallies in Iran, after a Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran, Iran, September 23, 2022. Iranians staged mass protests over the case of Mahsa Amini, 22, who died last week after being arrested by moral police for wearing “inappropriate clothing”.WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
DUBAI, Sept 26 (Reuters) – Iran accused the United States on Monday of using unrest sparked by the death of a woman in police custody to try to destabilize the country and warned it would not go unanswered, as the biggest protests since 2019 showed no signs abatement.
Iran has cracked down on nationwide demonstrations sparked by the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini after she was detained by morality police enforcing the Islamic Republic’s strict restrictions on women’s clothing.
The case drew international condemnation. Iran said the United States was supporting the rebels and seeking to destabilize the Islamic Republic.
STRIKE CALL
Iran’s main teachers’ union, in a statement posted on social media on Sunday, called on teachers and students to stage the first national strike since the unrest began on Monday and Wednesday.
Women played a prominent role in the protests, waving and burning veils. See the article : Officials blame inflation, post-COVID rebound for proposed public health benefits hikes.
In a video circulating on social media, the sister of a man killed in anti-government demonstrations, Javad Heydari, cut her hair at his grave in defiance of Iran’s conservative Islamic dress code. Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the footage.
The state organized rallies in an attempt to defuse the crisis.
Although the demonstrations over Amini’s death are a major challenge for the government, analysts see no immediate threat to the country’s leaders as Iran’s elite security forces have quelled protests in the past.
Iran has blamed armed Iranian Kurdish dissidents for involvement in the unrest, particularly in the northwest where most of Iran’s roughly 10 million Kurds live.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards launched an artillery and drone attack on Iranian militant opposition bases in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
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Dubai Newsroom reporting; Additional reporting by Rachel More in Berlin; Writing by Michael George; Editing: Frank Jack Daniel, Christian Schmollinger, Alex Richardson and Alison Williams
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. To see also : Tensions between the United States and Iran could rise this summer.
