2 killed as protests against Iran’s theocracy enters 4th week

SULIMANIYAH, Iraq — Anti-government demonstrations erupted Saturday in several locations across Iran as the most sustained protests in years against a deeply entrenched theocracy entered their fourth week. At least two people were killed.

Marchers chanted anti-government slogans and twirled headscarves in repudiation of coercive religious dress codes. In some areas, merchants shuttered shops in response to a call by activists for a commercial strike or to protect their wares from damage.

The protests erupted Sept. 17, after the burial of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman who had died in the custody of Iran’s feared morality police. Amini had been detained for an alleged violation of strict Islamic dress codes for women. Since then, protests spread across the country and were met by a fierce crackdown, in which dozens are estimated to have been killed and hundreds arrested.

In the city of Sanandaj in the Kurdish-majority northern region, one man was shot dead Saturday while driving a car in a major thoroughfare, rights monitors said. The

France-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network and the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights said the man was shot after honking at security forces stationed on the street. Honking has become one of the ways activists have been expressing civil disobedience.

The semi-official Fars news agency claimed that people in Sanandaj’s Pasdaran Street said the victim was shot from inside the car without elaborating. But photos of the dead man indicate that he was shot from his left side, meaning he likely was not shot from inside the car. The blood can be seen running down the inside of the door on the driver’s side.

Patrols have deterred mass gatherings in Sanandaj but isolated protests have continued in the city’s densely populated neighborhoods.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a meeting with students from the all-female Al-zahra University in Tehran alleged again that foreign enemies were responsible for fomenting the protests.