At least 92 killed in Iran’s Mahsa Amini protests, human rights group says
- Kurdish Iranian Amini, 22, died on September 16 after she was arrested for allegedly breaching rules requiring women to wear head coverings
- Solidarity rallies with Iranian women have been held worldwide, with demonstrations in more than 150 cities on Saturday
At least 92 people have been killed as Iran has cracked down on women-led protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the notorious morality police, the group Iran Human Rights said on Sunday.
As protests stretch into a third week, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Sunday said that the “enemies” of Iran had “failed in their conspiracy”.
Kurdish Iranian Amini, 22, was pronounced dead on September 16 after she was detained for allegedly breaching rules requiring women to wear hijab headscarves and modest clothes, sparking Iran’s biggest wave of popular unrest in almost three years.
An additional 41 people died in clashes on Friday in Iran’s far southeast, an area bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan, Oslo-based IHR also said, citing local sources. Those protests were sparked by accusations a police chief in the region had raped a teenage girl of the Baloch minority, it said.
Solidarity rallies with Iranian women – who have defiantly burned the hijabs they have been obliged to wear since the 1979 Islamic revolution – have been held worldwide, with demonstrations in more than 150 cities on Saturday.
In Iran itself, clashes between Iranian protesters and security forces have rocked cities nationwide for 16 nights in a row after they first flared in western regions home to Iran’s Kurdish minority, where Amini hailed from.