Iranian students protested Tuesday at multiple universities, defying a bloody crackdown as tensions mount on the eve of planned ceremonies marking 40 days since Mahsa Amini’s death. 

“A student may die but will not accept humiliation,” they chanted at Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, in an online video verified by AFP. Young women and schoolgirls have been at the forefront of protests sparked by Amini’s death last month, after her arrest for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

The 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin died three days after being taken into custody by the notorious morality police on September 13 while visiting Tehran with her younger brother. Activists said the security services had warned Amini’s family against holding a ceremony and not to ask people to visit her grave Wednesday in Kurdistan province, otherwise “they should worry for their son’s life”.

Wednesday marks 40 days since Amini’s death and the end of the traditional mourning period in Iran.

State news agency IRNA published a statement it said was from the family, saying that “considering the circumstances and in order to avoid any unfortunate problem, we will not hold a ceremony marking the 40th day”.

‘Attacked, strip-searched, beaten’

Online videos showed students protesting Tuesday at Beheshti University and the Khaje Nasir Toosi University of Technology, both in Tehran, as well as Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz. The fresh demonstrations came after activists accused security forces of beating schoolgirls at the Shahid Sadr girls vocational school in Tehran on Monday.

“Students of the Sadr high school in Tehran have been attacked, strip-searched and beaten up,” said the 1500tasvir social media channel.

At least one student, 16-year-old Sana Soleimani, was hospitalised, said 1500tasvir, which chronicles rights violations by Iran’s security forces. “Parents later protested in front of the school. Security forces attacked the neighbourhood and shot at people’s houses,” it added.

The education ministry said a dispute erupted between schoolgirls and their parents and school staff after the principal demanded they comply with rules over the use of mobile phones. “The death of a student in this confrontation is strongly denied,” a ministry spokesman said, quoted by Iran’s ISNA news agency.

Families were seen clamouring for information outside the school in Tehran’s Salsabil neighbourhood, in an online video verified by AFP. And in western Kurdistan province, videos posted online by independent rights group Hengaw showed authorities on Tuesday evening patrolling roads leading into Saqqez, Amini’s hometown.

The group, which monitors rights violations in Kurdistan, also tweeted that Iranian football stars Ali Daei and Hamed Lak were in Saqqez as they “want to take part in the 40th day funeral” and were staying at the Kurd Hotel. But they “had been taken to the government guesthouse… under guard by the security forces”, Hengaw said.

Daei has previously run into trouble with authorities over his online support for the Amini protests. Unverified footage posted by Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group showed people gathering outside the Kurd Hotel in Saqqez “in their night protests”.

Top official heckled

Such reports have fuelled further anger over the crackdown that Iran Human Rights said, in an updated toll Tuesday, had cost the lives of at least 141 protesters.

Deadly unrest has hit not only Kurdistan — but also the city of Zahedan in the far southeast. IHR said 93 people were killed in demonstrations that erupted on September 30 over the reported rape of a teenage girl by a police commander.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency said unidentified gunmen killed two Revolutionary Guards in Zahedan Tuesday, taking to eight the number of security personnel killed in Sistan-Baluchistan.

Despite what rights group Amnesty International has called an “unrelenting brutal crackdown”, young women and men were again seen protesting in online videos on Tuesday.

“Death to the dictator” and “Death to the Revolutionary Guards”, women chanted in Tehran metro stations, in videos shared on Twitter.

Students heckled the spokesman for ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi as he addressed Tehran’s Khaje Nasir University, in a video published by the reformist paper Hammihan.

“Spokesman, get lost!” and “We don’t want a corrupt system, we don’t want a murderer”, they shouted at Ali Bahadori Jahromi.

Teachers observed a strike around the country Sunday and Monday over the crackdown, and another work stoppage was said to be under way in Kurdistan on Tuesday.

Amnesty says the crackdown has cost the lives of at least 23 children, while IHR said Tuesday at least 29 children have been killed.

There has also been a campaign of mass arrests of protesters and their supporters, including academics, journalists and even pop stars.

State media said Tuesday that more than 210 people were charged in connection with the protests in Kurdistan, Qazvin and Isfahan.

IRNA said 105 people were charged over protests in Khuzestan, citing the local judicial authorities.

Raihana M* was in her living room in the Afghan capital, Kabul, when she first heard of protests erupting across the border in neighbouring Iran following the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly breaching Iran’s strict dress code. 

The Afghan social worker saw footage of the protests in Iran on Manoto TV, a London-based Persian language TV station, and said she felt an immediate, almost physical, rush of solidarity for her Iranian sisters. 

“I was really shocked and sad. As an Afghan, as a woman, I felt solidarity because we are experiencing the same thing. Only it’s worse for women in Afghanistan,” she explained in a phone interview from Kabul. 

That was in late September, not long after 22-year-old Amini was declared dead by the Iranian authorities. Raihana then took to social media, watching clips of protests across Iranian cities and towns. 

Other Afghan women living under the Taliban regime were also doing the same. Within days, a group of around 30 Afghan women gathered outside the Iranian embassy in Kabul chanting, “Zan, zendagi, azadi!” (Women, life, freedom), echoing the protest cry from Iran. They also held banners proclaiming, “From Kabul to Iran, say no to dictatorship!”.

Taliban officials then moved in to break up the demonstration, firing into the air and threatening to hit the women with their rifle butts.  

Lina Qasimi, an Afghan teenager who has been unable to go to school since the Taliban shut down secondary schools, has also been keenly following the protests in Iran. “I feel very close to this. It’s really terrible. No one should be killed for just showing their hair. But in Afghanistan, it’s not just hair, it’s women. Just being a woman is a problem for the Taliban,” she said. 

With a 921 km border dividing the two countries, Tehran and Kabul have a complicated history of wars, border skirmishes, smuggling networks, migrations, and discrimination in Iran against Afghan refugees. But they also share cultural ties, common linguistic traditions, and centuries of empathy that is probably best described in the lyrics of revered Iranian songwriter, Bijan Taraghi, who famously wrote, “Though your child threw a stone at our window/It did not break our lasting bond”. 

‘Afghan women are really alone’ 

As protests spread across Iran, both Raihana and Qasimi were struck by the extraordinary scenes of Iranian men joining the women in their anti-regime demonstrations. “The difference is, in Iran, all the people are standing up. Iranian women and men are really protesting in unity,” noted Raihana. “In Afghanistan, it’s not like that – people are so afraid. Afghan women are really alone.” 

That’s true, says Tamim Asey, co-founder of the Kabul-based Institute for War and Peace Studies and a former Afghan deputy defence minister. “Iranian women have the support of men in considerable ways. Afghan women don’t have that. Afghan men have suffered 40 years of war, so much violence, so much killing. The Taliban are also putting tremendous pressure on the men. If some women protest, they find their husbands, fathers, brothers and arrest them,” he explained. 

Afghan women began protesting the week after the Taliban seized control of Kabul on August 15, 2021, despite the grave risk of confronting a movement of hardline Islamist male fighters.  

The crackdown has been brutal and extends to male relatives of ‘troublesome’ women, according to rights groups. In a report last week, the New York-based Human Rights Watch detailed the cases of three women, who were arrested with their husbands and children, separated under detention and severely tortured. The detained women included Tamana Paryani, who filmed herself pleading for help as the Taliban broke into her house at night in January after she joined a women’s protest demanding the right to education and work.

 

‘We are not allowed to do anything’ 

And yet, the women’s protests in Afghanistan have continued. Following an October 1 attack on an education centre in Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barachi neighbourhood, which killed more than 50 mostly female students, protests by women and girls erupted in several Afghan cities, including Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat and Bamiyan. 

But they failed to get the sort of media attention and solidarity displays that the Iranian protests have attracted across the world.

On Saturday, around 80,000 people from across Europe demonstrated in Berlin in solidarity with the protest movement in Iran. Global celebrities, including leading French actress Juliette Binoche, have filmed themselves cutting locks of hair in public displays of protest against Amini’s death in custody.

“The international support for Iranian women has been phenomenal. US President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, actors, designers, celebrities have all condemned the persecution and expressed support for the Iranian protesters. The same thing does not happen for Afghan women – even though they originally started the protest movement that had a spillover effect in Iran. And they raised their voices against a far more brutal, dogmatic regime,” said Asey. 

The international engagement in Afghanistan, followed by the disastrous fallout of the hasty US withdrawal, could account for the lack of global interest, according to experts. “Over the last 20 years, Western countries have supported Afghan women in various forms and forums. The West feels it’s done so much, now it’s time for Afghan women to take it on. In Iran, that support wasn’t there,” explained Asey. 

But for Afghan women, taking on the Taliban’s restrictive policies is a monumental task. 

The fear of crackdowns and surveillance have forced Qasimi and her friends to take to social media and avoid the streets. But even the online solidarity is restricted to “live stories” – which typically expire after 24 hours – and not “posts” that stay online until they are deleted.

“It’s the only way I can say anything. It’s too dangerous to post anything critical. The Taliban will find you and they can do anything. We are not allowed to do anything. We’re not allowed to go to school, even if we just go outside, we fear we may not come back home,” explained the Afghan teenager. 

At 26, Raihana, on the other hand, completed her education during the US intervention years. She is among the few, lucky women in the country to still have her job, at an international NGO. The Afghan aid worker did not want her real name or that of her employer revealed due to the security risks. And there are many. In the mornings, Raihana dons an abaya, an all-black robe worn in Gulf countries that has made its way to Afghanistan. Their office car, with female and male colleagues, takes different routes each day to avoid Taliban checkpoints as they make their way to work, offering essential humanitarian services that the Taliban fails to provide Afghans. 

The differences between the women-led protest movements in Afghanistan and Iran extend to the scope of their demands, according to Barnett Rubin, a leading Afghanistan expert and former special advisor to the late US Ambassador for Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke. “The Iranian demonstrations are centrally against enforcement of hijab and then more broadly “freedom.” Education of girls and women is a non-issue in Iran. In Afghanistan, women are protesting about issues of basic rights and survival and not, so far, about hijab,” explained Rubin in emailed comments to FRANCE 24. 

Spillover effect – or not 

From her home in Kabul, Raihana says she is closely monitoring the situation in Iran. “If the protests work, if the Iranian government makes changes, if the restrictions on hijab change, I think the Taliban will see it. They will learn that if they continue like this, it could happen here,” she said. 

But Asey is not as optimistic. “My assessment and reading of the situation is that the Taliban barely cares about the women’s movement in Iran. They’re not afraid of a spillover,” he maintained. 

As a former deputy defence minister, Asey explained that Kabul’s main concerns with Tehran are focused on border issues, including drug trafficking and migration. 

Protests in Iran have indeed spread to the impoverished province of Sistan-Baluchistan – which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan – including a September 30 “Black Friday” massacre, when Iranian security forces opened fire on protesters, killing at least 66 people.

But the unrest in the remote Iranian border province involves longstanding governance and religious rights issues between the predominantly Sunni Baloch ethnic group and Shiite authorities in Tehran, explained Asey.

Despite the odd border clashes and demonstrations over the mistreatment of Afghans in Iran, the Taliban have managed a working relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran since the August 2021 takeover of Afghanistan.  

Both administrations are wary of the West, particularly the US. When it comes to women’s rights, the situation in Iran may not be as bleak as in Afghanistan, but the two Islamic administrations are joined in their bid to silence female voices – and blame the West’s “corrupting influence” when that fails. 

“I understand that the Taliban and Iran have some connection. There are meetings, discussions between them,” said Raihana. “Also, the Taliban stopped the protest in support of Iranian women outside the Iranian embassy in Kabul. It shows some support for each other.” 

But Afghan women are also drawing moral support from their Iranian sisters across the border and are determined to keep up the pressure for their basic human rights. 

*Name changed to protect identity 

 

The judiciary said four of those injured in Saturday’s fire were in critical condition and those killed had died of smoke inhalation, Iranian state media reported.

The fire at Tehran’s notorious Evin prison came amid ongoing unrest sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of Iran’s morality police a month ago.

The protests have turned into one of the boldest challenges to the clerical leadership since the 1979 revolution, and have been met with a brutal crackdown.

Before the authorities published the death toll from the fire, families of some political detainees took to social media to call on the authorities to ensure the safety of prisoners at Evin, which in 2018 was blacklisted by the U.S. government for “serious human rights abuses”.

Iranian authorities said on Saturday that a prison workshop had been set on fire “after a fight among a number of prisoners convicted of financial crimes and theft”. Evin holds many detainees facing security charges, including Iranians with dual nationality.

The footage of Evin aired on state television hours later showed firefighters inspecting a workshop with fire damage to the roof. It also showed inmates in their wards apparently “sleeping as calm has been restored”.

Atena Daemi, a human rights activist, said that relatives of prisoners held in the women’s section had gathered at the prison for routine visiting hours, but that the authorities had denied them access, resulting in a standoff.

The relatives were told that the prisoners were “fine, but the phones are broken”, according to Daemi.

“When the families said they would not leave until they (prisoners) call, give them mobile phones to call, security guards confronted the families,” she tweeted.

In the footage broadcast on state television, a prison official said inmates had been allowed to contact their families.

A lawyer representing an American Iranian held at Evin, Siamak Namazi, imprisoned for nearly seven years on espionage-related charges rejected by Washington as baseless, said on Sunday that Namazi had indeed contacted his relatives.

Several other dual national Iranians and foreign citizens are held in Evin prison mostly for security-related charges. “I am pleased to report that #SiamakNamazi has now spoken to his family. He is safe and has been moved to a secure area of Evin Prison. We have no further details at this time,” Jared Genser said in a tweet.

Namazi had returned to Evin on Wednesday after being granted a brief furlough, Genser said.

Violent crackdown

Asked about the prison fire, U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters during a campaign trip on Saturday to Portland, Oregon that the Iranian government was “so oppressive” and that he was surprised by the courage of the Iranian protesters.

Iran’s foreign ministry said Biden had interfered in state matters by showing support for the anti-government protests. The authorities have responded with a brutal crackdown.

Rights groups said at least 240 protesters had been killed in the anti-government protests, including 32 minors. Over 8,000 people had been arrested in 111 cities and towns, Iranian activist news agency HRANA said on Saturday.

Among the casualties have been teenage girls whose deaths have become a rallying cry for more demonstrations across the country.

Iran, which has blamed the violence on enemies at home and abroad, deny security forces have killed protesters. State media said on Saturday at least 26 members of the security forces had been killed by “rioters”.

The protests have attracted international condemnation, with the United States, Canada and some European countries imposing sanctions on Iranian officials and organisations “involved in the clampdown on protesters”.

“On Saturday … Biden interfered in Iran’s state matters by supporting the riots … In recent days, the U.S. administration has tried desperately to inflame unrest in Iran under various excuses,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said, ISNA reported.

The protests mark one of the boldest challenges to clerical rule since the 1979 revolution, with demonstrations spreading across the country and widespread calls for the downfall the Islamic Republic, even if the unrest does not seem close to toppling the system.

 

The circumstances around Amini’s death in custody remain vague with her family and Iranian authorities offering contradictory versions.

The 22-year-old Iranian woman died on September 16, three days after her arrest by Iran’s notorious morality police for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

An official Iranian forensic investigation found Amini had died of a longstanding illness rather than reported beatings.

Her family has denied the official version, stressing that their daughter was in perfect health and had died of a violent blow to the head. They have filed a complaint against security officers involved in her arrest and detention.

Amini’s death sparked mass protests spearheaded by women taking to the streets chanting, “Zan, zendegi, azadi!” – women, life, freedom.

Young women, university students and even schoolgirls have since taken off their hijabs and faced off with security forces in the biggest wave of social unrest to grip Iran in almost three years.

At least 108 people, including 28 children, have been killed and hundreds more detained and held mostly in adult prisons, according to human rights groups.

The unrest has been particularly marked in Amini’s western home province of Kurdistan as well as in the southeastern city of Zahedan, where demonstrations have erupted against a police officer accused of rape in a separate case.

Khamenei accuses ‘enemies’ of stoking ‘riots

Gunshots were fired as Iranian security forces confronted protesters in the cities of Isfahan and Karaj and in Amini’s hometown Saqez, in videos shared by two Norway-based human rights organisations.

“Death to the dictator,” shouted female students who had defiantly taken off their mandatory hijab headscarves as they marched down a Tehran street, in a video verified by AFP.

Shots were heard in Isfahan amid the “nationwide protests and strikes”, Iran Human Rights (IHR) said of a video it tweeted, and in Saqez, according to the Kurdish rights group Hengaw, which reported that later “the security forces fled”.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday again accused Iran’s “enemies” of stoking “street riots”.

“The actions of the enemy, such as propaganda, trying to influence minds, creating excitement, encouraging and even teaching the manufacture of incendiary devices are now completely clear,” he said.

The ISNA news agency reported a heavy security presence in the capital and demonstrations, including at Tehran University where police intervened “to restore order, without resorting to violence”.

‘Bloody crackdown’ feared

Activists in Tehran have called for protesters to turn out “in solidarity with the people of Sanandaj and the heroic people of Zahedan”.

“We don’t want spectators. Come and join us,” a group of mainly young women outside Tehran’s Azad University sang in IHR footage verified by AFP.

A man who asked not to be identified told the BBC: “The atmosphere is quite tense and yet it is exciting. People are hopeful this time and we hope that a real change is just around the corner. I don’t think people are willing to give up this time. 

“You can hear some sort of protest everywhere, almost every night. That feels good, that feels really good.”

IHR said the security forces had so far killed at least 108 people, and at least another 93 people in Zahedan, while warning of an “impending bloody crackdown” in Kurdistan.

It also said workers had joined protest strikes this week at the Asalouyeh petrochemical plant in the southwest, Abadan in the west and Bushehr in the south.

In its widening crackdown, Iran has blocked access to social media, including Instagram and WhatsApp, and launched a campaign of mass arrests.