Deadly clashes erupt as protests in Iran enter 4th week

SULIMANIYAH, Iraq — Antigovernment 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.

Protesters marched 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 strike by businesses or to protect their wares from damage.

The protests erupted Sept. 17, after the burial of Mahsa Amini, 22, 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 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. Video circulating online showed the slain man slumped over the steering wheel, as distraught witnesses shouted for help.

The semi-official Fars news agency, believed to be close to the elite paramilitary force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, said Kurdistan's police chief denied reports of using live rounds against protesters.

Fars 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.

A second protester was killed after security forces fired gunshots to disperse crowds and 10 protesters were wounded, the rights monitors said.

Demonstrations were also reported in the capital Tehran on Saturday, including small ones near the Sharif University of Technology, one of Iran's premier centers of learning and the scene of a violent government crackdown last weekend. Authorities have closed the campus until further notice.

Other protests erupted at Azad University in northern Tehran, in other neighborhoods of the capital and in the city's bazaar. Many shops were closed in central Tehran and near the University of Tehran.

Images on social media showed protests also took place in the northeastern city of Mashhad.

President Ebrahim Raisi alleged again that foreign enemies were responsible for fomenting the protests.