Tehran: Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi condemned Wednesday the “chaos” sparked through a wave of girls-led protests over the loss of life of Mahsa Amini at the same time as withinside the custody of the Islamic republic’s morality police.
“Those who took element withinside the riots ought to be treated decisively, that is the call for of the human beings,” stated Raisi in a televised interview.
“People’s protection is the pink line of the Islamic republic of Iran and nobody is authorized to interrupt the regulation and purpose chaos,” he stated.
“The enemy has centered country wide cohesion and desires to pit human beings in opposition to every other,” introduced the ultraconservative president, accusing Iran’s archfoe the US of stoking the unrest.
Amini, a 22-year-antique Kurdish woman, died on September 16, 3 days after she have been arrested for allegedly breaching Iran’s strict regulations for girls on carrying hijab headscarves and modest clothing.
Raisi stated the state had felt “grief and sorrow” over her loss of life, and that forensics and judiciary professionals could quickly gift a very last report, however additionally warned that “protests are special to riots”.
“Woman, Life, Freedom!” the protesters have chanted in Iran’s largest demonstrations in nearly 3 years, wherein girls have defiantly burned their headscarves and reduce off their hair.
Their moves had been matched in team spirit protests worldwide, with British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who spent six years in prison in Iran, reducing her hair in a video shared at the BBC Persian service.
Amini’s bereaved mother and father have filed a complaint, demanding “an intensive investigation” and the discharge of “all films and photographs” of her at the same time as in custody, stated their legal professional Saleh Nikbakht.
An Iraq-primarily based totally cousin of Amini, who’s a member of a Kurdish nationalist institution, charged that she died after a “violent blow to the head” and that one officer had vowed to “instil the regulations in her and train her a way to put on the hijab and a way to dress”.
As the Iranian protests have flared for 12 nights in a row, Iran’s police command vowed its forces could confront them “with all their might”, in a crackdown that one rights institution says has already killed as a minimum seventy six human beings.
– ‘Cowardly Attacks’ –
Iran has blamed out of doors forces for the unrest, including “counter-revolutionary” Kurdish organizations primarily based totally in northern Iraq — throughout from Iran’s Kurdistan province Amini hailed from, and wherein the protests first flared.
In a primary escalation, Iran on Wednesday released cross-border missile and drone moves that killed thirteen human beings in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, after accusing Kurdish armed organizations primarily based totally there of fuelling the unrest.
The assaults have been condemned through the UN challenge in Iraq, and the federal authorities in Baghdad summoned the Iranian ambassador.
The United States condemned the “brazen assaults” and Britain stated Iraq’s “indiscriminate bombardment” demonstrates “a repeated sample of Iranian destabilising pastime withinside the region”.
Germany slammed the “escalation… in opposition to the backdrop of home political protests in Iran” and rejected “tries to discover the reasons of the Iranian protests withinside the neighbouring country”.
The Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, one of the organizations centered, charged that “those cowardly assaults are happening at a time whilst the terrorist regime of Iran is not able to crack down on ongoing protests inner and silence the Kurdish and Iranian peoples’ civil resistance”.
– ‘Not A Big Deal’ –
The Iranian authorities — its financial system already hit through sanctions over its nuclear programme — has sought to minimize the crisis.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian stated he advised Western diplomats at latest UN conferences that the protests have been “now no longer a huge deal” for the steadiness of the clerical state.
“There isn’t always going to be regime alternate in Iran. Don’t play to the feelings of the Iranian human beings,” he advised National Public Radio in New York, additionally accusing “out of doors elements” of stirring up violence.
Fars information enterprise stated Tuesday “round 60” human beings have been killed on account that Amini’s loss of life. But the Oslo-primarily based totally institution Iran Human Rights stated the crackdown has killed as a minimum seventy six human beings.
Iran’s reaction has drawn difficulty from the United Nations and condemnation from the round the arena, with Germany and Spain summoning the Iranian ambassadors and the US and Canada saying new sanctions.
The son of Iran’s past due shah, in an interview close to Washington with AFP, hailed the protests and entreated the arena to feature to the stress at the clerical leadership.
Reza Pahlavi, whose father become toppled withinside the 1979 Islamic Revolution, entreated more instruction for a destiny Iranian device this is secular and democratic.
“It is virtually in current times, in my opinion, the primary revolution for the girls, through the girls — with the assist of the Iranian men, sons, brothers and fathers,” stated Pahlavi.
