Iran Protests Draw Thousands in Milestone Memorial for Amini

Arsalan Shahla and Golnar Motevalli
·3 min read
8

(Bloomberg) -- Iranian protesters and workers held demonstrations and strikes across the country to mark a traditional mourning ceremony for Mahsa Amini, the Kurdish-Iranian woman whose death in police custody sparked nationwide unrest.

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Crowds gathered at the cemetery where Amini was buried on the outskirts of Saghez in Iran’s Kurdistan province, with the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency estimating the number of demonstrators at around 10,000. The internet was shut down in the area for security reasons, it added.

A video posted on Twitter by Oslo-based Iran Human Rights showed people walking down a four-lane road purportedly toward the cemetery. The footage cannot be verified by Bloomberg.

The Paris-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network, a non-governmental organization, said protests then moved to outside the city governor’s office and public squares, with security forces firing bullets and tear gas.

Wednesday’s rallies followed thousands of posts on Twitter, Instagram and Telegram calling for large demonstrations to mark 40 days since Amini’s death, a traditionally important stage in the mourning process in Iran.

Strikes

Strikes were reported in a number of cities including Tehran, where workers at the state-managed Tehran Oil Refining Co. staged walkouts, according to an unverified video posted on Twitter. Workers returned to work after getting assurances from managers that unspecified “union issues” would be resolved, state-run IRNA reported, citing a refinery spokesman.

The site, on the southern outskirts of the capital, can refine 250,000 barrels of crude a day.

The Hengaw Human Rights Organization said seven Kurdish cities in the country’s west had gone on complete strike, with all business and schools shuttering for the day. They included Saghez where Amini is buried and where the protests first kicked off during her funeral on Sept. 17.

Strikes and gatherings have also been reported in Sanandaj, the capital of Kurdistan province and the site of some of the most violent crackdowns on protesters by security forces.

Late on Tuesday, Hengaw said that Ali Daei, a famous footballer who has been vocal in his support of the protests, had traveled to Saghez in order to attend ceremonies at Amini’s grave but was detained overnight by security forces at his hotel and is being kept at a government guest house. The reports couldn’t be verified by Bloomberg.

Amini died on Sept. 16 after she fell into a coma when the so-called “morality police” arrested her for allegedly flouting Islamic dress codes while on a trip to Tehran with her family, sparking one of the fiercest public rebukes of the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution.

Authorities have sought to crush the demonstrations by force, targeting protesters with shotguns, stun guns, pepper spray and batons. Thousands have been arrested and at least 400 people are set to stand trial on broad national security charges.

The Oslo-based Iran Human Rights said on Tuesday that it confirmed the deaths of 234 protesters so far, including 29 children, all killed by security forces.

(Updates throughout with detail of rallies, new footage.)

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