Iranian security forces have used live ammunition and tear gas on Wednesday against protesters who have again taken to the streets in the southeast of the country, according to eyewitnesses.
Demonstrations have again returned to cities such as Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchestan province, with crowds of stores closed for fear of violence as locals describe a war-like situation. «Now it’s day to day,» explained one of them.
On September 30, dozens of people were killed in Zahedan in what is already being called «Bloody Sunday», the darkest episode since the protests began a month and a half ago.
The death of young demonstrators has provoked a spiral of violence after the usual 40 days of mourning and again clashes with the police have erupted.
An influential Sunni cleric in the province, Maulawi Abdulhamid, has criticized the response of the Iranian authorities, a country controlled by the Shiite clergy. Other clerics have gone outside the official discourse and there have even been calls for a vote on the protesters’ demands.
The protests began after the death of young Kurdish-Iranian Mahsa Amini, who died after being arrested in Tehran for allegedly not wearing the veil properly. The crackdown on the protests, which include calls for the overthrow of the Iranian regime, has so far resulted in the deaths of more than 300 people, according to the non-governmental organization Iran Human Rights (IHR).
