PARIS: Hundreds of mourners poured onto the streets of a flashpoint Iranian city Thursday, defying a lethal crackdown on protests over Mahsa Amini’s death that shows signs of turning even bloodier.
This week’s protests coincide with the third anniversary of “Bloody Aban” — or Bloody November — when hundreds were killed in a crackdown on street violence that erupted over a shock overnight decision to hike fuel prices.
Security forces on Thursday killed one protester in Bukan and two in Sanandaj, a flashpoint where mourners were paying tribute to “four victims of the popular resistance” 40 days after they were slain, the Oslo-based Hengaw rights group said.
It said a member of the security forces was also killed later in Sanandaj, where people thronged the streets even as the sound of gunfire was heard in a video published by Hengaw and verified by AFP.
“Death to the dictator,” protesters chanted in another online video as they marched down a street in Sanandaj filled with bonfires and cars whose horns blared, directing their fury at Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The tradition in Iran of holding a “chehelom” mourning ceremony 40 days after a death has fueled the demonstrations that have become the regime’s biggest challenge from the street in decades.
Fears are growing that the regime is turning “more violent after being unable to suppress the people for two months,” said Saeid Golkar, from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Speculation has mounted that Iran’s leadership has decided to crush the protest movement in the same way that it did in November 2019, when security forces killed at least 304 people, according to Amnesty International.
The demonstrations were sparked by the death of 22-year-old Amini on September 16, after her arrest for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code for women.
The unrest has been fanned by fury over the brutal enforcement of the mandatory hijab law, but has grown into a broad movement against the theocracy that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Gunmen on motorcycles killed nine people in two mysterious attacks Wednesday, state media said, as the protests intensified.
In the southwestern city of Izeh, “a terrorist group took advantage of a gathering of protesters” to shoot dead seven people — including a 45-year-old woman, two children aged nine and 13, and a police officer, the official IRNA news agency said.
It was the second attack the authorities have blamed on “terrorists” in the two months since the protests broke out, after at least 13 people were killed at a shrine in the southern city of Shiraz on October 26.
But a family member of the nine-year-old boy killed on Wednesday, identified as Kian Pirfalak, accused security forces of carrying out the attack, in a tweet shared by Radio Farda, a US-funded Persian station based in Prague.
“He was going home with his father and was targeted with bullets by the corrupt regime of the Islamic republic. Their car was attacked from all four sides,” the unidentified family member is heard saying in an audio recording.
In a separate attack hours later in Iran’s third city Isfahan, two assailants on a motorcycle shot dead two members of the Basij paramilitary force and wounded another two, Fars news agency said.
Elsewhere, Hengaw accused the security forces of killing at least 10 people within a 24-hour period up until late Wednesday at protests in the cities of Bukan, Kamyaran, Sanandaj and Amini’s hometown of Saqez.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abollahian accused Israel and its allies of plotting against the Islamic republic.
Security services, Israel and Western politicians had “made plans for a civil war and the destruction and disintegration of Iran,” Amir-Abollahian tweeted.
General Hossein Salami, head of the Revolutionary Guards, said Iran was facing a “conspiracy.”
Iran Human Rights, another Oslo-based organization, said Wednesday that security forces had killed at least 342 people, including 43 children and 26 women, since the start of protests.
Amnesty International said Iran was seeking the death penalty for at least 21 people in “sham trials designed to intimidate” protesters.
“The crisis of impunity prevailing in Iran is enabling the Iranian authorities to not only continue carrying out mass killings but also to escalate the use of the death penalty as a tool of political repression,” Amnesty’s Diana Eltahawy said.
Mourners hit streets as Iran protests take bloody turn
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Mourners hit streets as Iran protests take bloody turn
- Security forces on Thursday killed one protester in Bukan and two in Sanandaj
- Hengaw said a member of the security forces was also killed later in Sanandaj, where people thronged the streets even as the sound of gunfire was heard
Gaza baby rescued from dead mother’s womb dies
- Doctors were able to save the baby, delivering her by Caesarean section
- The baby suffered respiratory problems and a weak immune system, said Doctor Mohammad Salama who had been caring for Sabreen Al-Rouh
RAFAH, Gaza Strip: A baby girl who was delivered from her dying mother’s womb in a Gaza hospital following an Israeli airstrike has herself died after just a few days of life, the doctor who was caring for her said on Friday.
The baby had been named Sabreen Al-Rouh. The second name means “soul” in Arabic.
Her mother, Sabreen Al-Sakani (al-Sheikh), was seriously injured when the Israeli strike hit the family home in Rafah, the southernmost city in the besieged Gaza Strip, on Saturday night.
Her husband Shukri and their three-year-old daughter Malak were killed.
Sabreen Al-Rouh, who was 30-weeks pregnant, was rushed to the Emirati hospital in Rafah. She died of her wounds, but doctors were able to save the baby, delivering her by Caesarean section.
However, the baby suffered respiratory problems and a weak immune system, said Doctor Mohammad Salama, head of the emergency neo-natal unit at Emirati Hospital, who had been caring for Sabreen Al-Rouh.
She died on Thursday and her tiny body was buried in a sandy graveyard in Rafah.
“I and other doctors tried to save her, but she died. For me personally, it was a very difficult and painful day,” he told Reuters by phone.
“She was born while her respiratory system wasn’t mature, and her immune system was very weak and that is what led to her death. She joined her family as a martyr,” Salama said.
More than 34,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, have been killed in the six-month-old war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas militants, according to the Gaza health ministry. Israel denies deliberately targeting civilians in its campaign to eradicate Hamas.
Much of Gaza has been laid to waste by Israeli bombardments and most of the enclave’s hospitals have been badly damaged, while those still operating are short of electricity, medicine sterilization equipment and other supplies.
“(Sabreen Al-Rouh’s) grandmother urged me and the doctors to take care of her because she would be someone that would keep the memory of her mother, father and sister alive, but it was God’s will that she died,” Salama said.
Her uncle, Rami Al-Sheikh Jouda, sat by her grave on Friday lamenting the loss of the infant and the others in the family.
He said he had visited the hospital every day to check on Sabreen Al-Rouh’s health. Doctors told him she had a respiratory problem but he did not think it was bad until he got a call from the hospital telling him the baby had died.
“Rouh is gone, my brother, his wife and daughter are gone, his brother-in-law and the house that used to bring us together are gone,” he told Reuters.
“We are left with no memories of my brother, his daughter, or his wife. Everything was gone, even their pictures, their mobile phones, we couldn’t find them,” the uncle said.
UN denounces ‘more serious’ Iran crackdown on women without veils
- Hundreds of businesses including restaurants and cafes have been shut down for not enforcing the hijab rule
- More women began refusing the veil in the wake of the 2022 death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini
GENEVA: The United Nations said Friday that it was concerned by reports of new efforts to track and punish Iranian women, some as young as 15, who refuse to wear the headscarf required under the country’s Islamic law.
The UN Human Rights Office also expressed alarm about a draft bill on “Supporting the Family by Promoting the Culture of Chastity and Hijab,” which would impose tougher sentences on women appearing in public without the hijab.
“What we have seen, what we’re hearing is, in the past months, that the authorities, whether they be plainclothes police or policemen in uniform, are increasingly enforcing the hijab bill,” Jeremy Laurence, a spokesman for the office, said at a press conference.
“There have been reports of widespread arrests and harassment of women and girls — many between the ages of 15 and 17,” he said.
Iranian police announced in mid-April reinforced checks on hijab use, saying the law was increasingly being flouted.
Hundreds of businesses including restaurants and cafes have been shut down for not enforcing the hijab rule, and surveillance cameras are being used to identify women without it, Laurence said.
More women began refusing the veil in the wake of the 2022 death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after her arrest by Iran’s morality police for allegedly breaking the headscarf law, which sparked a wave of deadly protests against the government.
Laurence said that on April 21, “the Tehran head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced the creation of a new body to enforce existing mandatory hijab laws, adding that guard members have been trained to do so ‘in a more serious manner’ in public spaces.”
And while the latest draft of the new hijab bill has not been released, “an earlier version stipulates that those found guilty of violating the mandatory dress code could face up to 10 years’ imprisonment, flogging, and fines,” he said, adding that “this bill must be shelved.”
The Human Rights Office also called for the release of a rapper sentenced to death for supporting nationwide protests sparked by Amini’s death.
Toomaj Salehi, 33, was arrested in October 2022 for publicly backing the uprising.
“All individuals imprisoned for exercising their freedom of opinion and expression, including artistic expression, must be released,” Laurence said.
UN seeks to deescalate Sudan tensions amid reports of possible attack
- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ envoy is engaging with all parties to deescalate tensions
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations is increasingly concerned about escalating tensions in Al-Fashir in Sudan’s North Dafur region amid reports that the Rapid Support Forces are encircling the city, signaling a possible imminent attack, the UN’s spokesperson said on Friday.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ envoy is engaging with all parties to deescalate tensions in the area, the spokesperson said.
Israeli army says missile fire kills civilian near Lebanon
- The violence has fueled fears of all-out conflict between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel
- “Overnight, terrorists fired anti-tank missiles toward the area of Har Dov in northern Israel,” the Israeli army said
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said Friday a civilian was killed near the country’s northern border with Lebanon, as near-daily exchanges of fire with Hezbollah rage.
Both sides have stepped up attacks this week, with Hezbollah increasing rocket fire and Israel saying it had carried out “offensive action” across southern Lebanon.
The violence has fueled fears of all-out conflict between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel, which last went to war in 2006.
“Overnight, terrorists fired anti-tank missiles toward the area of Har Dov in northern Israel,” the Israeli army said, referring to the disputed Shebaa Farms district.
“As a result, an Israeli civilian doing infrastructure work was injured and he was later pronounced dead.”
Israeli media reported that the victim was an Arab-Israeli truck driver. Police told AFP they had not identified the body, but said it was the only one found after a truck was hit.
Hezbollah said it had destroyed two Israeli vehicles in the Kfarshuba hills overnight in a “complex ambush” on a convoy using missiles and artillery.
The Israeli army did not comment directly on the claim.
It said Israeli fighter jets struck Hezbollah targets around Shebaa village in southern Lebanon including a weapons store and a launcher, while soldiers “fired to remove a threat in the area.”
It said fighter jets also “struck Hezbollah operational infrastructure in the area of Kfarshuba and a military compound in the area of Ain El Tineh in southern Lebanon.”
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported that Shebaa village, Kfarshuba and Helta were targeted by “more than 150 Israeli shells,” leaving homes damaged.
Iran-backed Hezbollah has been trading almost-daily fire with the Israeli army since the day after its Palestinian ally Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7.
Since October 8 at least 380 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 252 Hezbollah fighters and dozens of civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israel says 11 soldiers and nine civilians have been killed on its side of the border.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides.
EU commits $73 million more for Gaza aid
- New EU aid would be focused on food deliveries, clean water, sanitation and shelters
- The EU and United States have demanded that Israel allows more aid into Gaza
BRUSSELS: The European Union on Friday said it was giving an extra 68 million euros ($73 million) to provide desperately needed aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
The territory has been devastated by more than six months of Israeli bombardment and ground operations after Hamas’s October 7 attack, leaving the civilian population of two million people in need of humanitarian assistance to survive.
“In light of the continued deterioration of the severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and the steady rise of needs on the ground, the (European) Commission is stepping up its funding to support Palestinians affected by the ongoing war,” an EU statement said.
“This support brings total EU humanitarian assistance to 193 million euros for Palestinians in need inside Gaza and across the region in 2024.”
The EU said the new aid would be focused on food deliveries, clean water, sanitation and shelters, and would be channelled through local partners on the ground.
The United Nations has said Israel’s operation has turned Gaza into a “humanitarian hellscape,” amid fears of a looming famine.
The EU and United States have demanded that Israel allows more aid into Gaza.
The US military said on Thursday it had begun construction of a pier meant to boost deliveries to the territory.
The war in Gaza began with an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of about 1,170 people in Israel, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas, with a retaliatory offensive that has killed at least 34,356 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
