The death toll in Iran is rising as Tehran brings in the Islamic Guard (IRGC) militia to quell anti-regime protests. After eight straight days of protests, the number of deaths have risen to 35, the UK newspaper Guardian reported Saturday.
The nationwide unrest is biggest challenge to the Shia-Islamic regime in recent years. “Anti-government protesters and security forces have clashed in several major cities in the most severe political violence since 2019,” The Associated Press noted.
The protests were triggered after last week’s custodial death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman held by Iran’s Islamic morality police for violating country’s Sharia-mandated dress code.
What began as an anti-hijab protest by Iranian women, with many of them publicly burning Islamic headscarf, turned into an anti-regime protest hit cities across Iran. Video clips circulating on social media show Iranians chanting “Khamenei is a murderer” and “Death to the dictator.”
Protestors also turned their anger of symbols and icons belonging to the Shia-Islamic regime, burning portraits of Qaseem Soleimani, the senior Iranian terror operative who was killed in a drone strike ordered by former U.S. President Donald Trump.
People “tore and burned posters of Qaseem Soleimani —the Revolutionary Guard commander who was killed in a US drone strike in January 2020— in his hometown Kerman,” the Indian weekly Outlook reported Saturday.
“In another video, protesters can be seen torching a massive billboard showing Qassem Soleimani,” the Voice of America noted.
As protests hit cities across Iran, the regime is deploying militia belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
“Iranian security forces, including the pro-government Basij militia, are trying to quell growing nationwide protests,” the Reuters confirmed. The IRGC-Basij “shock troops which have been at the forefront of repressing popular unrest,” the news agency added.
Iran’s morality police “have the power to stop women and assess whether they are showing too much hair; their trousers and overcoats are too short or close-fitting; or they are wearing too much make-up. Punishments for violating the rules include a fine, prison or flogging,” the BBC noted this week.
The regime-organized demonstrators on Friday called for the execution of pro-democracy protesters. The Reuters reported:
State-organised rallies took place in several Iranian cities on Friday to counter nationwide anti-government unrest triggered by the death of a woman in police custody, with marchers calling for the execution of “rioters”.The pro-government marches followed the strongest warning yet from authorities when the army said it would confront “the enemies” behind the unrest – a move that could signal the kind of crackdown that has crushed protests in the past. (…)”Offenders of the Koran must be executed,” they chanted.
Amid raging protests, the regime has blocked people’s access to social media and messaging apps. The BBC reported of “widespread internet outages and residents being unable to access social media.”
“Anger has circulated online after over a week of protests sparked by the death of a Kurdish woman in police custody,” the UK broadcaster reported Saturday. “Internet monitoring group NetBlocks said Instagram and WhatsApp – two of the major communication tools that Iran usually allows – had been restricted.
In past, the shutting down of internet in Iran has been accompanied by a violent crackdown on protests.
The regime has declared all anti-regime gatherings illegal. “The government in Tehran threatened to prosecute anyone involved in “illegal gatherings,” as authorities sought to head off spiraling unrest over the death of Amini,” the Bloomberg News reported Saturday.
While U.S.-based Islamic groups like CAIR and agitators like Linda Sarsour try to sell hijab to the West as a “Symbol of Freedom,” women in Sharia-governed Iran are being murdered in the streets for defying this symbol of Islamist oppression.
The mainstream media celebrates hijab-donning public figures such as Sarsour and Rep. Ilhan Omar as ‘courageous’ women. But the truth is that Iranian women, braving IRGC bayonets and bullets, are the real icons of courage.
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