Women join protest in Iran’s conservative south-east

WOMEN in Iran’s Sistan-baluchistan province yesterday joined nationwide protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death, in what a rights group called a “rare” move in the staunchly conservative south-eastern region.

Online videos showed dozens of women on the streets of the provincial capital Zahedan holding banners that declared “Woman, life, freedom” – one of the main slogans of the protest movement that erupted in September.

“Whether with hijab, whether without it, onwards to revolution,” chanted women clad in body-covering chadors in videos posted on Twitter and verified by global news agency AFP.

Women-led protests have swept Iran since Ms Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin, died following her arrest in Tehran for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic’s dress code.

Security forces have killed at least 448 protesters, with the largest death toll in Sistan-baluchistan on Iran’s south-eastern border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to Iran Human Rights, an Oslo-based non-governmental body.

“It is indeed rare,” said Mahmood Amiry-moghaddam, IHR director, of the latest protests by women in Zahedan, which has seen men take to the streets after Friday prayers for more than two months. “The ongoing protests in Iran are the beginning of a revolution of dignity.”

Baluchi women were among the “most oppressed” in Iran and their pro- tests yesterday were the most organised by them so far since the demonstrations broke out across the country, he added.

At least 128 people have been killed in Sistan-baluchistan during the protest crackdown, according to IHR.