Tehran: Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi condemned Wednesday the “chaos” sparked with the aid of using a wave of ladies-led protests over the demise of Mahsa Amini even as withinside the custody of the Islamic republic’s morality police.
“Those who took component withinside the riots need to be handled decisively, that is the call for of the humans,” stated Raisi in a televised interview.
“People’s protection is the pink line of the Islamic republic of Iran and nobody is authorized to interrupt the regulation and motive chaos,” he stated.
“The enemy has centered country wide cohesion and desires to pit humans in opposition to every other,” introduced the ultraconservative president, accusing Iran’s archfoe the USA of stoking the unrest.
Amini, a 22-year-vintage Kurdish woman, died on September 16, 3 days after she have been arrested for allegedly breaching Iran’s strict policies for ladies on sporting hijab headscarves and modest clothing.
Raisi stated the country had felt “grief and sorrow” over her demise, and that forensics and judiciary professionals could quickly gift a very last report, however additionally warned that “protests are distinctive to riots”.
“Woman, Life, Freedom!” the protesters have chanted in Iran’s largest demonstrations in nearly 3 years, wherein ladies have defiantly burned their headscarves and reduce off their hair.
Their moves had been matched in harmony protests worldwide, with British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who spent six years in prison in Iran, reducing her hair in a video shared at the BBC Persian service.
Amini’s bereaved mother and father have filed a complaint, demanding “a radical investigation” and the discharge of “all motion pictures and photographs” of her even as in custody, stated their attorney Saleh Nikbakht.
An Iraq-primarily based totally cousin of Amini, who’s a member of a Kurdish nationalist institution, charged that she died after a “violent blow to the head” and that one officer had vowed to “instil the policies in her and train her a way to put on the hijab and a way to dress”.
As the Iranian protests have flared for 12 nights in a row, Iran’s police command vowed its forces could confront them “with all their might”, in a crackdown that one rights institution says has already killed at the least seventy six humans.
– ‘Cowardly Attacks’ –
Iran has blamed outdoor forces for the unrest, including “counter-revolutionary” Kurdish corporations primarily based totally in northern Iraq — throughout from Iran’s Kurdistan province Amini hailed from, and in which the protests first flared.
In a prime escalation, Iran on Wednesday released cross-border missile and drone moves that killed thirteen humans in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, after accusing Kurdish armed corporations primarily based totally there of fuelling the unrest.
The assaults have been condemned with the aid of using the UN venture in Iraq, and the federal authorities in Baghdad summoned the Iranian ambassador.
The United States condemned the “brazen assaults” and Britain stated Iraq’s “indiscriminate bombardment” demonstrates “a repeated sample of Iranian destabilising pastime withinside the region”.
Germany slammed the “escalation… in opposition to the backdrop of home political protests in Iran” and rejected “tries to find the reasons of the Iranian protests withinside the neighbouring country”.
The Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, one of the corporations centered, charged that “those cowardly assaults are taking place at a time while the terrorist regime of Iran is not able to crack down on ongoing protests interior and silence the Kurdish and Iranian peoples’ civil resistance”.
– ‘Not A Big Deal’ –
The Iranian authorities — its financial system already hit with the aid of using sanctions over its nuclear programme — has sought to minimize the crisis.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian stated he informed Western diplomats at latest UN conferences that the protests have been “now no longer a massive deal” for the steadiness of the clerical state.
“There isn’t always going to be regime alternate in Iran. Don’t play to the feelings of the Iranian humans,” he informed National Public Radio in New York, additionally accusing “outdoor elements” of stirring up violence.
Fars information company stated Tuesday “round 60” humans have been killed when you consider that Amini’s demise. But the Oslo-primarily based totally institution Iran Human Rights stated the crackdown has killed at the least seventy six humans.
Iran’s reaction has drawn difficulty from the United Nations and condemnation from the round the sector, with Germany and Spain summoning the Iranian ambassadors and the USA and Canada saying new sanctions.
The son of Iran’s overdue shah, in an interview close to Washington with AFP, hailed the protests and advised the sector to feature to the stress at the clerical leadership.
Reza Pahlavi, whose father became toppled withinside the 1979 Islamic Revolution, advised more instruction for a destiny Iranian device this is secular and democratic.
“It is without a doubt in contemporary-day times, in my opinion, the primary revolution for the ladies, with the aid of using the ladies — with the help of the Iranian men, sons, brothers and fathers,” stated Pahlavi.