Iran students continue protest over crackdown since Mahsa Amini death, global demonstrations held in solidarity
- Protests have been held nightly for more than two weeks, despite a bloody crackdown that a rights group says has claimed more than 80 lives
- It is the bloodiest unrest in Iran since a crackdown on demonstrations in November 2019 over a sudden hike in fuel prices killed at least 304 people
Students demonstrated in Tehran and other Iranian cities on Saturday against an ongoing crackdown on dissent over the death last month of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the Islamic republic’s notorious morality police.
Iranians based abroad and their supporters gathered in cities around the world in solidarity.
A wave of street violence has rocked Iran since Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, died after her arrest by the morality police for allegedly failing to observe the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.
Protests have been held nightly for more than two weeks, despite a bloody crackdown that a rights group says has claimed more than 80 lives.
“Woman, life, freedom” and “Death to the dictator”, they chanted in the streets of Amini’s hometown of Saqqez, in Kurdistan province of northwest Iran.
On Saturday, riot police massed at major road junctions across the capital, as students demonstrated in Enghelab (Revolution) Square near Tehran University in the city centre to press for the release of arrested students.