SULAIMANI (ESTA) — At least three people including a member of the security forces had been killed during unrest in Iran, according to authorities on Wednesday.
Iran’s unrest and violent protests that covered the country continued for the fifth day against the suspicious death of a Kurdish woman in police custody who was detained by the so-called morality police for refusing to wear a veil, which is compulsory in Iran.
Rights groups reported at least one more person was killed on Tuesday, which would take the death toll to at least seven.
The official IRNA news agency said a “police assistant” died from injuries on Tuesday in the southern city of Shiraz.
“Some people clashed with police officers and as a result one of the police assistants was killed. In this incident, four other police officers were injured,” IRNA said. An official quoted by IRNA said 15 protesters were arrested in Shiraz.
Two Kurdish human rights groups – Hengaw and the Kurdistan Human Rights Network – said a 43-year-old man was killed by security forces gunfire on Tuesday in Urmia, a city in the western Azerbaijan province.
The death last week of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by morality police in Tehran for “unsuitable attire”, unleashed simmering anger over issues including freedoms in the Islamic Republic and an economy reeling from sanctions.
After beginning on Saturday at Amini’s funeral in Iran’s Kurdistan province, protests have engulfed much of the country, prompting confrontations as security forces have sought to suppress them.
There was no official confirmation of that death.
Amini fell into a coma and died while waiting with other women held by the morality police, who enforce strict rules in the Islamic Republic requiring women to cover their hair and wear loose-fitting clothes in public.
Her father said she had no health problems and that she suffered bruises to her legs in custody and holds the police responsible for her death. The police have denied harming her.
The hijab has been compulsory for women in Iran since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Morality police but in origins is Gasht-e Ershad, or guidance patrol, responsible to monitor and enforce the Islamic dress in Iran by women.
(Esta Media Network/Reuters)
