Iran leader urging unity amid unrest
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi appealed Tuesday for national unity and tried to quell anger against the country’s rulers, even as the anti-government protests continued to spread to universities and high schools.
Raisi acknowledged that the Islamic Republic had “weaknesses and shortcomings,” but repeated the official line that the unrest sparked last month by the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, in the custody of the country’s morality police was nothing short of a plot by Iran’s enemies.
Amini, 22, was arrested on a charge of violating the Iran’s strict dress code.
“Today the country’s determination is aimed at cooperation to reduce people’s problems,” he told a parliament session. “Unity and national integrity are necessities that render our enemy hopeless.”
Iran has also blamed the unrest on Kurdish opposition groups in the country’s northwest that operate along the border with neighboring Iraq.
On Tuesday, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard bombed three bases belonging to Kurdish militant groups in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region with drones and artillery, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported, without elaborating on casualties.
The scope of the ongoing unrest, the most sustained in over a decade, remains unclear as witnesses report spontaneous gatherings across the country featuring small acts of defiance — protesters shouting slogans from rooftops, cutting their hair and burning their state-mandated headscarves.
Iran’s security forces have sought to disperse demonstrations with tear gas, metal pellets, and in some cases live fire, rights groups say. Iran’s state TV reports that violent confrontations between protesters and the police have killed at least 41 people, but human rights groups say the number is much higher.
An escalating crackdown on the press, with dozens of journalists arrested in the last few weeks, has stifled most independent reporting on sensitive issues such as the deaths of protesters.
The recent disappearance and death of a 17-year-old girl in Tehran, however, has unleashed an outpouring of anger on Iranian social media.
Nika Shahkarami, who lived in Iran’s capital with her mother, vanished one night last month during the protests in Tehran, her uncle Kianoush Shakarami told Tasnim news agency. She was missing for a week before her lifeless body was found in a Tehran street and was returned to her family, Tasnim reported, adding relatives had not received official word on how she died.
Foreign-based Iranian activists allege she died in police custody, with hundreds circulating her photo and using her name as hashtag online for the protest movement. The prosecutor in the western Lorestan province, Dariush Shahoonvand, denied any wrongdoing by authorities and said she was buried in her village Monday.
As the new academic year began this week, demonstrations spread to university campuses, long considered sanctuaries in times of turmoil. Roiled by the unrest, many universities moved classes online this week.
Protests also appeared to grip gender-segregated high schools across Iran, according to widely shared footage.
The response by Iran’s security forces has drawn widespread condemnation. On Monday, President Joe Biden said his administration was “gravely concerned about reports of the intensifying violent crackdown.”
The British foreign office summoned the Iranian ambassador in London.
“The violence leveled at protests in Iran by the security forces is truly shocking,” said British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.
Security forces have rounded up an untold number of demonstrators, as well as artists who have voiced support for the protests. Local officials report at least 1,500 arrests.