After 10 days of continuous protest in Iran against the death of Mahsa Amini who died after falling into a coma following her detention in Tehran by morality police over proper hijab rules, at least 41 people were killed and Iran said that her death has been used by west and mercenaries to attack Iran’s Islamic republic.
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has pledged to deal “decisively” with the protests that have swept the country since the death of a woman who was detained by the Iranian morality police.
The president “stressed the necessity to distinguish between protest and disturbing public order and security, and called the events … a riot,” state media reported
The protests broke out in north-western Iran a week ago at the funeral of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman.
Dr. Massoud Shirvani, a neurosurgeon said that the Mahsa had a brain tumor removed at the age of 8 and she was treated with drugs after the surgery under the supervision of an endocrinologist.
Protestors demanded a proper investigation and the Iran’s president ordered a probe into her death.
But the protest grew louder and violent since a week.
On Friday, Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said the riots that have followed Amini's death, had nothing to do with the tragic event, stating that the issue was being exploited by rabble-rousers to instigate chaos and wreak havoc across the country.
As per social media, some women waved and burned their veils. Some have publicly cut their hair as furious crowds called for the fall of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Countering the protest, the alleged state-organised rallies also took place on Friday in several Iranian cities.
Millions of Iranians take to the streets across the country to condemn the acts of vandalism and desecration of Islamic sanctities by rioters in the past few days, Iran’s state media reported.
“They strongly condemned the crimes and evil acts committed by a handful of mercenaries serving foreign enemies, who set fire to the Holy Qur’an, mosques, and the national flags and forcefully removed women’s headscarves on the streets, among other things.”
Last week, Iranian police released CCTV footage, which shows Amini collapsing in the police station. The video rejected claims that she was beaten up and denied any physical contact with her.
State television in Iran has also accused armed exiled Iranian Kurdish dissidents of involvement in the unrest, said the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps had fired artillery on bases of Kurdish opposition groups in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq.
In Iraq, dozens of Iraqi and Iranian Kurds rallied outside the UN compound in the northern city of Erbil, carrying placards with Amini’s photograph and chanting: “Death to the dictator,” referring to Khamenei.
It is pertinent to mention that Iran’s economy has been reeling from western sanctions since the Islamic revolution led by Khamenei in 1979.