Coverage Of Nationwide Protests In Iran On October 15
As anger has risen among Iranians over an attack on students in a high school for girls this week, fresh nationwide protests began on Saturday around noon.
As anger has risen among Iranians over an attack on students in a high school for girls this week, fresh nationwide protests began on Saturday around noon.
The Youth of Tehran Neighborhoods, an anonymous group that helped organize rallies in the capital in the past four weeks, had called for another round of nationwide protests on October 15, in a statement titled "Beginning of the end."
The government has shut off all mobile internet access since Saturday morning in anticipation of large demonstrations, especially in the northwest, among Azari-speaking Iranians who have been outraged by government violence against schoolgirls in Ardabil, with a majority of Azaris.
Based on information received by Iran International, school officials tried to force the students to sing a song, “Hello Commander” in praise of Iran’s ruler Ali Khamenei. Some students refused and then government agents showed up, beating and assaulting the girls. One student reportedly died of her injuries.
Unrest has continued every day, including Friday, with protests in several cities, but today’s protests are expected to be larger and more widespread.
Despite the Internet disruption in Iran, news and videos have started trickling out of the country and we follow the situation closely and will update readers throughout the day.
Below we posted news and videos as we received them and tried to verify their authenticity.
Our Live Coverage that began at 13:30 local time on Saturday, ended at 00:42 on Sunday.
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Residents from Tehran's southern neighborhood of Nazi Abad are still out on the streets chanting antigovernment slogans, while many women who observe the Islamic dress code – or hijab – by choice are seen among the protesters.
The woman in this photo is carrying a banner vowing to get Iran back from the Islamic regime.
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In some parts of the city Ahvaz people are still holding gatherings and chanting slogans against the Islamic Republic while a lot of people in their cars are expressing their support with long honks.
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People have set up fires in several neighborhoods in the central city of Yazd, chanting slogans to gather support for the protests.
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Local sources from the Khuzestan province have reported intense fighting between the agents of the regime and people in the oil-rich city of Masjedsoleyman and the city of Lali. Mobile internet networks in Khuzestan are shut down and landline internet is very weak.
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In Hamedan, people are seen throwing stones at the security forces, a rare scene for the city whose citizens have usually been among the last to join the antigovernment protests during the past few years.
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In the central city of Yazd, security forces are directly shooting at protesters while several neighborhoods of the city were covered by the teargas shot to disperse the protesters.
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The Kurdish majority city of Kermanshah was also a scene of protests on Saturday night, with some reports that claimed the streets were in control of the demonstrators.
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Videos coming from the city of Ardabil show desperate riot police forces who have resorted to every conceivable measure but are still unable to control the crowds of people, outraged over the death of a teenage girl who was killed a few days ago.
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Protesters cheer young men who are destroying government propaganda billboards in Amol, in the northern Mazandaran province.
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A small group of protesters chanting slogans in front of a shopping arcade in downtown Tehran. Social media reports say security forces and plainclothes agents are present in large numbers in all areas they suspect protests may erupt.
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Protesters are chanting slogans in Rasht, capital of the northern Gilan Province, where university students held a protest rally earlier today.
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Plainclothes agents attacking women quietly walking on a sidewalk in Mashhad.
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Hardliner news agencies publish video of an interview with the uncle of another young girl who was reportedly beaten to death by Basij militias inside her school in Ardabil Wednesday. He says she has died of a congenital heart condition at home.
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Further footage from protests in Ardabil today shows riot police armoured vehicle trying to run over a protester and riot police police kicking the closed shutters of a shop.
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A student who recorded this video at Tehran’s Kharazmi University shouts “Plainclothesmen are assaulting students here!”
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Sporadic clashes are reported from Ardabil, where people are attacking security forces a day after after plainclothes forces killed a schoolgirl and injured several others in a raid on their high school. Iranian authorities have denied reports about the death of the student, identified as Asra Panahi, saying she died due to heart failure.
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Students at Shariati Technical and Vocational College held a gathering, removed their compulsory head covers and chanted slogans, calling for others to join them.
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In Rasht, the capital of northern Gilan province, protesters are chanting “This is the year of blood; Seyyed Ali [Khamenei] will be toppled.”
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Female students at Tehran’s University of Science and Culture have unveiled at the campus in defiance of warnings by the university's authorities, chanting slogans for freedom.
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Students at Tehran’s Allameh Tabatabai University interrupted an address by one of the authorities of the university who was threatening students with expulsion and warning them against protests at the campus with boos and slogans.
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Plainclothes agents drawing weapons on protesters who object the abduction of a female protester in Gohardasht neighborhood of Karaj today.
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Another video from Ardabil which shows protesters chanting "Down with the Dictator" where girls in a secondary school were beaten up and arrested for refusing to sing a government propaganda song on Wednesday.
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Students at Tehran University chanting "plainclothesman are in universities and students are in detention centers!"
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Students at Shariati Technical and Vocational College in Tehran chanting against Khamenei and his rule for "So many years of atrocities".
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Students at Tehran's Science and Technology University are chanting in support of protesters in Kordestan and Sistan and Baluchestan provinces where security forces have used the most violence and killed many.
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Soureh Art University in Tehran. Students are demanding the release of their detained classmates.
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Students at Tehran University have also staged a protest, demanding freedom.
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Security forces firing at protesters in Gohardasht, a neighborhood in Karaj, capital of Alborz Province.
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Protesters have taken to the street in Mashhad, Iran's second most populous city.
They are chanting "Mullas should get lost".
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In Hamedan, the capital of Hamedan Province, protesters throwing stones at security forces and booing them.
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Women chanting Death to Khamenei in Shahin Shahr, central Esfahan Province.
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Students of Rasht Azad University in the northern Gilan province have begun protesting.
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People have taken to the street in Ardabil, capital of northwestern Ardabil province, where girls in the secondary school were beaten up for refusing to sing the government propaganda song on Wednesday. One of the girls reportedly died in hospital later.
Protesters are chasing the security forces and chanting "Scoundrels, Scoundrels" at them.
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Zahedan is the capital of Sistan and Baluchistan province in the southeast near Pakistan, with a majority ethnic Baluch citizens who are Sunni with grievances against the Shiite clerical regime. When they came out to protest on September 30 amid nationwide demonstrations, government forces opened fire, killing around sixty civilians. In the following days two dozen more residents were killed.
Iranian plainclothes agents raided a girls' high school in Ardabil, northwest of Iran and an Azari speaking city, on Thursday, injuring 10 students and arresting seven others. One schoolgirl has died of internal bleeding, according to the Iranian Teachers' Trade Association. Reportedly, the government was trying to force the school girls to participate in a pro-regime rally.
Video showing confusion and ambulances in the girls' high school in Ardabil
An anonymous announcement came out in Tabriz, the largest Azari speaking city in Iran following the incident in Ardebil calling on citizens to join nationwide protests on Saturday, warning government forces not to raise their fists against the people.
Independent Iranian human rights group based abroad, HRANA reported that as of Friday evening 233 protesters were confirmed killed by security forces, including 32 children. Earlier, Amnesty International had reported 23 children dead.
HRANA added that authorities have arrested 7,704 protesters, including 170 university students. In the past four weeks 428 street and university protest gatherings have taken place in 112 cities and towns.
School children have been also protesting forced hijab after Mahsa Amini was killed in ‘morality’ police custody in mid-September. An unknown number of school students have been arrested and sent to what the government says “psychological” rehabilitation centers, which no one has ever heard about.
The ethnic Arab population of the oil-rich Khuzestan province in the southwest also protested on Friday. Due to government disruption of Internet access no videos have been received by text messages say there were fierce protests Friday evening in Ahvaz, the provincial capital, with security forces firing weapons.
The government also organized a gathering of supporters in Tehran on Friday, which coincided with Prophet Mohammed’s birthday. Several thousand people took part, but the crowd seemed much smaller than in similar past rallies.
Iran’s ruler Ali Khamenei also gave a speech in an Islamic conference organized by Tehran, where he spoke about his vision of Muslim unity, without directly attacking the protests that have rocked Iran for four weeks.
An anonymous group of activists calling themselves the Tehran Youth have called for nationwide protests on Saturday [October 15], which is expected to become a new round of rallies and demonstrations around the country similar to unrest on October 8 and 12.
Iran International obtained the copy of a message sent to all retired members of the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and all those affiliated with it to join the government forces planning to confront protesters on Saturday. But our information indicates many have refused to show up at 8:00 am at Tehran’s IRGC headquarters. This means that government forces may not have the required numbers to disperse protesters who have adopted a new tactic of coming into streets in various location instead of one large gathering.