The protests unleashed by the death of Mahsa Amini began with large demonstrations that were repressed by force, with which the mobilizations went to the universities and have now spread to schools with girls removing their veils in Iran.
Added to this are gestures of disobedience in the streets: women who walk on public roads without a veil, without apparently protesting; drivers honking their horns non-stop, or shouting from the windows against the regime at night.
Amini died on Friday, September 16 after being arrested by the so-called Morale Police for wearing the veil wrong and since then the Persian country has been experiencing protests led by young people and especially women, who want more freedoms.
GIRLS WITHOUT VEILS
In the last two days a new front has been opened in the protests: college girls and high school students.
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“Woman, life, freedom,” students shouted at a school in the city of Sanandaj, in Iranian Kurdistan, as they waved their veils, according to an unverified video released by activists.
In the city of Karaj, in Alborz province, young students threw their veils at a teacher.
”We do not want the Islamic Republic” Y “Let the clerics be lost”yell high school students in other videos.
In cities like Tehran, very young protesters have marched through the streets, while car horns sounded as a sign of support, according to videos in which it can be seen that these are Iranian streets, the license plates are from the country and the accent is from the area. .
These new protests are calmer than the pitched battles of days gone by, but if a tragedy were to happen in one of the schools, the consequences would be unpredictable.
”The protests have become uncontrollable. Unless (the authorities) want to beat up and arrest school girls there is no turning back.”Sina Toossi, an analyst at the Center for International Policy in Washington, said on Twitter.
And that has been the way in which the authorities have managed the crisis so far, with violent crackdowns, arrests of protesters, activists, journalists and public figures who have supported the protestswhile they have pointed to the “enemy”, that is, the US and Israel, as being behind everything.
Those crashes caused 41 dead according to last week’s state television count, but the NGO Iran Human Rightsbased in Oslo, raise the figure to 92.
EVOLUTION
In the face of this repression, the protests have been evolving and mutating in an unpredictable way.
In the first days of the protests, there were rallies in at least 40 cities in Iran’s 31 provinces, which led to pitched battles with heavy clashes with security forces using batons, tear gas and, according to the UN, live ammunition.
Once that fire was extinguished, the mobilizations went to the universities, which began face-to-face classes last Saturday after a week before the authorities decided that the start of the school year would only be “online”, despite strong restrictions on the internet. .
Thus, the main universities of Tehran and other Iranian cities experienced protests this weekend that in some cases resulted in strong clashes with the security forces.
This was the case at Tehran’s prestigious Sharif University of Technology, where on Sunday night there was strong clashes with shots in the air and at least 36 students were arrested.
“Shots have been heard around the university. The situation it is dangerous do not leave the university ”, indicated the newspaper of the educational center on its social networks on Sunday.
That university canceled face-to-face classes the next day, but other faculties in the country took up the baton in the protests over Amini, but also over the arrest of Sharif students.
The authorities have responded to this new challenge by shielding the universities with riot police, as is the case of the Tehran and Amir Kabir universities, located in the center of the capital.
DISOBEDIENCE
To all this is added more everyday ways of showing anger, indignation or fatigue with the state of freedoms in the Persian country.
Thus, on the streets you see women alone or in small groups who walk without veils, without apparently protesting.
Or they directly flaunt the lack of a veil: in the popular Valiasr street, two young people walked along the median of the road without veils and waving colored balloons in a festive way, on a recent afternoon.
Early in the morning, in Tehran’s heavy traffic, many drivers honk their horns non-stop, something that is repeated in the afternoon, at the end of the working day.
The drivers also play the song “For” that has become the anthem of the mobilizations and that led its author Shervin Hajipour to jail, from which he was released yesterday on bail.
That song also plays from some windows at night, when the neighbors shout “Death to the dictator” in reference to the supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, under the cover of darkness.
(with information from EFE)
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Source-www.infobae.com