Wounded Iran Protesters Avoid Hospitalization In Fear Of Arrest

Pro-government officials and media have increasingly been accusing protesters of “terrorism” and “fomenting sectarianism” following their harsh crackdown on demonstrators in the Baluch city of Zahedan in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan September 30, which left nearly a hundred dead, including children and bystanders, and the ongoing crackdown in Sanandaj in the western Kordestan (Kurdistan) province.

Protests will result in Iran's partition if the government does not crack down, they warn. They also blame “foreign enemies” and “terrorist groups” for the unrest that began 24 days ago when Mahsa Amini, a young woman was killed in police custody, and has spread since then.

Antigovernment activists say that the harsh crackdown on ethnic groups is the government’s tactic to foment more tensions and appear as the savior of Iran’s territorial integrity and public security.

The Revolutionary Guards (IRGC)-linked Tasnim news agency wrote Saturday that because “foreigners failed” to use the ethnic card in the protests they resorted to other disruptive tactics.

Tasnim was referring to a hactivist group’s disruption of a state TV’s news program which suddenly transitioned from a clip showing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to chants of “women, life, and freedom”, the signature slogan of the current protests, or revolution, as many describe it now.

The IRGC which had initially not used overwhelming military force against protesters on the streets, has been attacking the positions of Kurdish Iranian insurgent groups in Iraqi Kurdistan with artillery and drones in the past three weeks.

Sectarian groups have been active in both provinces for decades but there is no indication, judging from the slogans protesters chant in both places that they are fighting for any cause other than toppling the clerical regime.

“Down with the Dictator” and “Death to Khamenei” are at the top of the protesters’ list of slogans in Zahedan, capital of Sistan and Baluchestan, and Sanandaj, capital of Kordestan, as in all other areas of the country.

“The people of Kordestan donated blood for the people of Zahedan and chant ‘Kordestan supports Zahedan’. Accuse them of separatism if you dare!”, a supporter of protesters tweeted.

“You had ‘separated’ us for 43 years: men from women, the younger from the older generation, the Kurds from the Turks, The Luris from the Baluchis, the Persian speakers from the Gilaki speakers, … We have just united to separate the Islamic Republic and its clerics from our Iran,” another tweet which has become very popular said.

Others have pointed out in their social media posts that officials consistently refer to peacefully protesting university students as “rioters’, celebrities who have supported protesters as “lackeys of the West”, ethnic groups as “separatist” and claim that the youth who have turned into the driving force of the protests as kids who are only acting up.

“You are resorting to everything you can to instigate sectarianism in some part of the country [but you keep failing]. You tried Baluchestan but you failed, now you are targeting Sanandaj. No part of the Iranian territory has been or will be separated from it. Whenever it happened [in the past] it was because of the incompetence of the rulers at the time. You’ve lost your power of tricking people,” US-based Iranian journalist Ehsan Karami tweeted.

In a statement on Monday, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said, “We are extremely concerned by continuing reports of children and adolescents being killed, injured and detained amid the ongoing public unrest in Iran.”

Describing violence against children – by anyone and in any context – as “indefensible,” she called for “the protection of all children from all forms of violence and harm, including during conflict and political events.”

Echoing the UN Secretary-General’s call to the authorities to refrain from using unnecessary or disproportionate force, she said that “Children and adolescents must be able to exercise their rights in a safe and peaceful manner at all times.”

According to Norway-based Iran Human Rights organization said on Saturday, October 8, that at least 19 children have been killed in protests across Iran since mid-September, when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was killed in custody of hijab police. The Oslo-based organization added that at least 185 people have been killed in the government’s crackdown on the uprising. 

The protests first erupted in Mahsa Amini’s hometown Saqqez and capital Tehran and soon spread to other cities and garnered support from Iranian expatriate communities around the world as well as foreign governments and officials.

Amid nationwide antigovernment protests, a widespread strike by oil and petrochemical workers could be very damaging for the government’s finances.

Petrochemical contract workers went on a strike and protested on Monday in the southern city of Asalouyeh, on the Persian Gulf coast. A worker’s group announced on social media that managers shut down some plants to prevent workers gathering in the surrounding streets to protest.

A regional governor claimed on Tuesday that workers who went on strike in Assaluye petrochemical plant were angered by a dispute over wages and had not joined antigovernment protests.

But an announcement by an oil workers’ protest organizing committee on the Telegram messaging app on Tuesday said their strike and rallies are in solidarity with nationwide protests. They also demanded the release of workers apparently arrested on Monday. They vowed to continue their strike and protests, hoping that workers in nearby cities will join them.

Iran has been rocked by more than three weeks of protests after a 22-year-old woman was arrested for “improper hijab” and killed in police custody in mid-September. The movement quickly turned into demonstrations against the Islamic Republic, with protesters routinely chanting “Death to the dictator”, and rejection of the clerical regime that has ruled Iran for 43 years.

The Iranian Chief Justice on Monday carefully chose his words and controlled his tone not to sound the same as always, threatening opponents. The head of the Iranian Judiciary sounded very different from a weak ago.

He said: “I’m ready. Let’s talk. If we’ve made mistakes, we can amend them,” however, hardly any Iranian believed him. The call may have been made far too late.

Thousands of protesters have been jailed by Iran’s Judiciary since 2017 and almost no one has received a fair trial. The cases of hundreds of people killed by security forces in the streets in November 2019 has remained sealed.

The change in Ejei's rhetoric was so noticeable that many in Iran and overseas took it as a sign of weakness, not only for a senior cleric, but for an autocratic regime that was never shaken before, even when it faced major protests.

Ejei called on Iranians, who have taken to the streets for the 4th consecutive week, fighting back as they were beaten and shot at by regime thugs, to come forward, talk about their grievances and seek ways to bring back tranquillity to the streets of Tehran and tens of other Iranian cities.

On the same day, pundits who are allowed to speak told reformist daily Etemad that officials need to act like father figures and understand their children. Meanwhile, reformist figure Jalal Jalalizadeh called on the government in an interviewwith conservative website Nameh News to “quickly start a dialogue with the people.”

Jalalizadeh warned the government that “if it fails to sympathise with the people, the society will become even more bipolar and that is in no one’s interest.” He suggested. That the regime needs to consider itself as the people’s representative, respect their vote and views and listen to their demands.

He added that the new generation of Iranians have different demands from the previous generation.

Meanwhile, reformist Etemad Online website quoted renowned sociologist Asef Bayat as saying that “in the current uprising the people wish to take back their normal life that has been taken away from them immediately after the 1979 Islamic revolution. He said that the morality police has humiliated millions of women in the streets since then.

Comparing Iran to the Arab world where the Arab Spring took place more than a decade ago, Bayat said that the gap between the government and the majority of the people is wider in Iran than anywhere else such as Tunisia or Egypt.

He described the uprising in Iran as an all-encompassing movement that has gathered together all Iranians regardless of their social class and ethnicity. “Like the people in Tunisia and Egypt the people of Iran also want the government to respect for their dignity.”

Bayat added that "the main difference between the movement in Iran and those in Arab states is that the women have taken the lead in Iran in the struggle against the authoritarian regime," which has killed at least 91 [protesters] in Zahedan in the Province of Sistan-Baluchestan, and scores of others including two dozen under 18 young women and 12 children in Tehran, Kurdistan, Gilan and other provinces during the past three weeks. The sociologist noted that Iranian women started their opposition to the government dictated lifestyle from the first day after the 1979 revolution.

In a series of tweets, Sullivan said that “The world is watching what is happening in Iran,” pointing to several innocent protestors, including a young girl, who were shot dead over the weekend. 

He decried the remarks by Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi who compared protestors to “flies,” noting that “These protestors are Iranian citizens, led by women and girls, demanding dignity and basic rights.”

He vowed to stand behind the protesters, saying that Washington will hold responsible those using violence in a vain effort to silence their voices.

On Saturday, October 8, Sullivan spoke with Iranian women’s and human rights activists about how the US can continue to support protestors in Iran. 

US Envoy for Iran Rob Malley told NPR last week that "What the US wants is a government in Iran that respects people's fundamental rights. It's not a policy of regime change. It's a policy of backing people who're protesting peacefully, because they want to be able not to wear a headscarf yet face an oppressive system."

Washington on October 6 imposed sanctions on seven Iranian officials over the shutdown of internet access and the crackdown on peaceful protesters. The EU are also putting significant pressure on Iran to stop Tehran from mistreatment of citizens