Iran cracks down on Kurds as protests continue
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran intensified its crackdown Tuesday on Kurdish areas in the country’s west amid protests sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman detained by the morality police as oil workers demonstrated at a key refinery, activists said.
Amnesty International and the White House’s national security adviser criticized the violence targeting demonstrators angered by the death of Mahsa Amini. Iran’s government insists Amini was not mistreated, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beating after she was detained for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code.
Oil workers claimed another protest Tuesday in the city of Abadan, with others calling for protests today as well.
A Kurdish group called the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights reported a “fierce conflict” Tuesday in Sanandaj, as well as in the nearby cities of Baneh and Saqqez, Amini’s hometown.
Amnesty International criticized Iranian security forces for “using firearms and firing tear gas indiscriminately, including into people’s homes.” It urged the world to pressure Iran to end the crackdown as Tehran continues to disrupt internet and mobile phone networks “to hide their crimes.”
Iran did not immediately acknowledge the renewed crackdown in Sanandaj. However, Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the British ambassador over the United Kingdom sanctioning members of the country’s morality police and security officials due to the crackdown.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry called the sanctions “arbitrary and baseless,” even while threatening to potentially take countermeasures against London.
Jake Sullivan, U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, similarly noted that “the world is watching what is happening in Iran.”
“These protesters are Iranian citizens, led by women and girls, demanding dignity and basic rights,” Sullivan wrote on Twitter. “We stand with them, and we will hold responsible those using violence in a vain effort to silence their voices.”
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported Tuesday that the demonstration Monday in Asaluyeh, a key point for Iran’s massive offshore natural gas field in the Persian Gulf it shares with Qatar, was a strike over wages. Workers said several of their colleagues had been detained by authorities after their protests Tuesday.
On Tuesday, the Contractual Oil Workers Protest Organizing Council claimed another strike at Abadan, posting videos outside of the massive refinery complex in the city near the Iraqi border. The details in the videos correspond with each and to known features of the facility compared against satellite photos taken in recent months.
It remains unclear how many people have been killed or arrested so far in the protests.
An Oslo-based group, Iran Human Rights, estimates at least 185 people have been killed. This includes an estimated 90 people killed by security forces in the eastern Iranian city of Zahedan amid demonstrations against a police officer accused of rape in a separate case.
Iran’s judiciary spokesman Masoud Setayeshi reportedly said Tuesday the country released some 1,700 people arrested in the recent demonstrations, without offering a total figure for those detained so far.