Iran lived this Saturday one of the hardest days of the protests unleashed by the death of Mahsa Amini, with clashes in a dozen cities, strikes and boos to the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisí, in mobilizations that enter their fourth week.
After three days off without protests - Wednesday was a holiday and Thursday and Friday are the weekend in the country - the Iranian week began with renewed cries of "Woman, freedom, life" after calls for demonstrations by university centers and activists.
In the surroundings of Tehran's prestigious Sharif University, small groups of young men and women without veils milled around corners from which they threw slogans, amid a heavy police presence, with dozens of riot police in the area.
"Support us, support us police!" An unveiled woman shouted outside the university center to the riot police officers present to join the protesters.
In a tense atmosphere, some people argued with police, while the first tear gas began to darken the streets. "Death to the Islamic Republic", shouted a group of young people in a side street of the university, to which they added "Islamic Republic we do not want you, we do not want you".
A man shouted "you have no honor" at the officers, while several of the shops in the area had their shutters half down. Shots could also be heard, but it was not possible to distinguish what type. In the capital, the protests spread to different points, from the southern Grand Bazaar, to the northern Tajrish Square. Shariati Street, also in the north, was cut off by the Police, who fired pellets at the protesters, eyewitnesses told Efe.
Protests were also experienced in other parts of the country, such as in the cities of Shiraz, Isfahan, Gohardasht or Kerman, among others, according to unverified videos shared on social networks by activists and journalists. The clashes were being especially harsh in Iranian Kurdistan, Amini's region of origin, where, in addition, in its capital, Sanandaj, there was a day of strike with closed shops. In that city, a person who was driving in a car was shot dead, a death that the province's police chief, General Ali Azadi, attributed to "counterrevolutionary forces" and the Hengaw NGO, based in Oslo, to the forces of security.
In the face of strong protests, mobile internet services were blocked, something that had not happened in recent days. There were also restrictions on fixed internet, whose speed dropped significantly. While this was happening, Raisí was giving a speech at Tehran's all-female Alzahra University, where she stated that Iranian students will not allow "the enemy's dreams to come true" and where, according to unverified activist videos, she was booed off.
"The enemy thought that he could seek his objectives in the university, without realizing that the students and professors are awake and will not allow the false dreams of the enemy to come true," said the president. As he left, a group of students yelled at the president: "Get lost, get lost," according to unverified videos. The university's communications officer, Faride Haghbin, later downplayed the shouting, saying that only about 15 students "with the instigation of some external (foreign) factors" had launched slogans.
Amini, 22, died on September 16 after being arrested three days earlier by the so-called Morale Police in Tehran on the grounds that she was wearing the Islamic veil wrongly. The state-run Forensic Medicine Organization of Iran said on Friday -and therefore a holiday- that Ella Amini died from a previous ailment and not from beatings by the police.
The state agency's forensic report determined that the young woman's death was due to multiple organ failure after brain hypoxia (decreased oxygen) and was not "caused by blows to the head and vital organs and limbs of the body." Amini's death has sparked protests that have continued since then and have mutated from large mobilizations with women burning veils strongly repressed by security forces to universities and even schools where girls remove their veils.
Those clashes caused 41 deaths according to the state television count last week, but the Oslo-based NGO Iran Human Rights puts the figure at 92.
