IRAN PROTESTS GET EVEN BLOODIER AS FEARS REGIME PLANS A TRULY VICIOUS CRACKDOWN
TEHRAN: Hundreds of mourners have poured onto the streets, defying a lethal crackdown on protests over Mahsa Amini’s death that shows signs of turning even bloodier.
Iran’s foreign minister and media raised the spectre of civil war. This week’s protests coincide with the third anniversary of “Bloody Aban” – or Bloody November – when hundreds were killed in a crackdown on street violence that erupted over a shock overnight decision to hike fuel prices.
“Death to the dictator,” protesters chanted in an online video as they marched down a street, directing their fury at Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The tradition in Iran of holding a “chehelom” mourning ceremony 40 days after a death has fuelled the demonstrations that have become the regime’s biggest challenge from the street in decades.
Fears are growing that the regime is turning “more violent after being unable to suppress the people for two months”, said Saeid Golkar, from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Speculation has mounted that Iran’s leadership has decided to crush the protest movement in the same way that it did in November 2019, when security forces killed at least 304 people, according to Amnesty International.
Shocking videos posted online show security forces attacking protesters at a train station with batons. Gunfire is also heard and protesters fall, suggesting another brutal massacre.
Iran Human Rights, another Oslo-based organisation, said security forces had killed at least 342 people since the start of protests.