PARIS: Fresh anti-regime protests took place overnight alongside celebrations for Iran’s traditional fire festival in the runup to Persian New Year, monitors said on Wednesday.
Video footage posted on social media showed groups of Iranians chanting anti-regime slogans, throwing headscarves into fires and burning images of the clerical leadership.
The fire festival, called Chaharshanbe Suri in Farsi, is celebrated every year on the night of the last Tuesday of the Iranian calendar year, which ends on March 20.
It is part of Iran’s pre-Islamic heritage and generally frowned upon by the Shiite clerical establishment but is popular with young people.
During the festival, participants jump over bonfires to ward off evil spirits. They also let off fireworks, many of them homemade, resulting in significant casualties every year.
Iran’s emergency services chief, Jafar Miadfar, said 11 people were killed and more than 3,500 injured during this year’s celebrations.
It was the first fire festival since protests erupted in Iran in September over the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, following her arrest for an alleged violation of Iran’s mandatory dress code for women.
The 1500tasvir social media channel, which monitors protest activity, posted footage of dozens of people marching in the Tehran district of Ekbatan chanting: “We are back, the uprising continues.”
It also posted footage of a large crowd chanting anti-regime slogans in the city of Rasht close to the Caspian Sea coast and of fireworks being thrown at police vehicles in Tehran.
In Tehran, women were shown dancing around bonfires and jubilantly throwing their mandatory headscarves into the flames.
The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran said protests also took place in Kurdish-populated regions of western Iran, with people shouting “death to the dictator” in Amini’s hometown of Saqez where security forces reportedly used tear gas.
In the town of Bukan farther north, IranWire website said protesters lit bonfires in the streets, prompting clashes with security forces.
In the capital, protesters set fire to a banner of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the Ekbatan neighborhood, it added.
The protests that followed Amini’s death last September have largely abated in recent months following a deadly crackdown by the security forces.
But analysts have said they need only a spark to flare up again as underlying grievances remain unaddressed.
New protests in Iran during fire festival: monitors
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New protests in Iran during fire festival: monitors
- The fire festival, called Chaharshanbe Suri in Farsi, is celebrated every year on the night of the last Tuesday of the Iranian calendar year
- During the festival, participants jump over bonfires to ward off evil spirits
Iran unrest persists, top judge warns protesters
- Demonstrations sparked by soaring inflation
- Western provinces worst affected
DUBAI: Iran’s top judge warned protesters on Wednesday there would be “no leniency for those who help the enemy against the Islamic Republic,” while accusing Israel and the US of pursuing hybrid methods to disrupt the country.
The current protests, the biggest wave of dissent in three years, began last month in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar by shopkeepers condemning the currency’s free fall.
Unrest has since spread nationwide amid deepening distress over economic hardships, including rocketing inflation driven by mismanagement and Western sanctions, and curbs on political and social freedoms.
“Following announcements by Israel and the US president, there is no excuse for those coming to the streets for riots and unrest, chief justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the head of Iran’s judiciary, was quoted as saying by state media.
“From now on, there will be no leniency for whoever helps the enemy against the Islamic Republic and the calm of the people,” Ejei said.
Iranian authorities have not given a death toll for protesters, but have said at least two members of the security services have died and more than a dozen have been injured.
Iran’s western provinces have witnessed the most violent protests.
“During the funeral of two people in Malekshahi on Tuesday, a number of attendees began chanting harsh, anti-system slogans,” said Iran’s Fars, news agency.
After the funeral, Fars said, “about 100 mourners went into the city and trashed three banks ... Some started shooting at the police trying to disperse them.”
The semi-official Mehr news agency said protesters stormed a food store and emptied bags of rice, which has been affected by galloping inflation that has made ordinary staples increasingly unaffordable for many Iranians.
