New clashes hit Iran as opposition urges protests, strikes

PARIS: Security forces used tear gas and live fire to disperse protesters in Iran, rights groups said Thursday, as people angered by economic crisis kept up their challenge to the authorities and exiled opposition groups urged new protests as well as strikes.

Twelve days of protests have shaken the clerical authorities under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei already battling economic crisis after years of sanctions and recovering from the June war against Israel.

The movement, which originated with a shutdown on the Tehran bazaar on December 28 after the rial plunged to record lows, has spread nationwide and is now being marked by larger scale demonstrations.

Authorities have blamed unrest on “rioters” and the judiciary chief has vowed there would be “no leniency” in bringing them to justice.

On Wednesday, an Iranian police officer was stabbed to death west of Tehran “during efforts to control unrest”, the Iranian Fars news agency said.

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Reza Pahlavi, the son of the shah ousted by the 1979 Islamic revolution and a key exiled opposition figure, said the turnout on Wednesday had been “unprecedented” in this wave of demonstrations and called for major new protests Thursday evening.

He said in a message on social media he had received reports the “regime is deeply frightened and is attempting, once again, to cut off the internet” to thwart the protests.

Iraq-based Iranian Kurdish opposition parties, including the Komala party which is outlawed by Tehran, called for a general strike on Thursday in Kurdish-populated areas in western Iran which have seen intense protest activity.

Soleimani statues attacked

The HRANA monitor published a video of protesters in Kuhchenar in the southern Fars province cheering overnight as they pulled down a statue of the former foreign operations commander of the Revolutionary Guards Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US strike in January 2020 and is hailed as a national hero by the Islamic republic.

Persian-language TV channels based outside Iran also posted images of a statue of Soleimani in the central city of Kashan being set on fire. It was not immediately possible to verify the images.

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HRANA said according to its count protests had taken place in 348 locations over the last 11 days in all of Iran’s 31 provinces.

It also published a video of people massing late at night in the Tehran satellite city of Karaj and lighting fires in the streets and also images of security forces using tear gas to disperse a protest in the Caspian Sea town of Tonekabon.

Images it said were taken Wednesday in the western city of Abadan showing security forces firing on protesters.

The Norway-based Iran Human Rights group said security forces on Wednesday “opened fire on protesters, used tear gas and violently assaulted civilians” during a protest in the key southeastern hub of Kerman.

The Hengaw rights group, which focuses on Kurds and other ethnic minorities in western Iran, said the call for a strike had been widely followed in some 30 towns and cities, posting footage of shuttered shops in the western provinces of Ilam, Kermanshah and Lorestan.

Unlawful force

The protests are being characterised by larger-scale demonstrations, with hundreds marching through a main avenue in the northeastern city of Bojnord on Wednesday in a video verified by AFP.

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Demonstrators are repeating slogans against the clerical leadership including “this is the final battle, Pahlavi will return” and “Seyyed Ali will be toppled”, in reference to Khamenei.

IHR said on Tuesday at least 27 protesters including five teenagers under the age of 18, have been confirmed to have been killed in a crackdown on the protests, warning the death toll will climb as more killings are verified.

The protests are the biggest in Iran for three years after the last major protest wave in 2022-2023 which was sparked by the custody death of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the strict dress code for women.

Rights groups have also accused authorities of resorting to tactics including raiding hospitals to detain wounded protesters.

“More than 10 days of protests have been met with unlawful force,” said Amnesty International. “Iran’s security forces have injured and killed both protesters and bystanders,” it added.