Sep 18 2023

Security is tense in Iran in anticipation of protests on the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death, with her parents under house arrest and the regime diverting water from a nearby dam to block access to her hometown’s cemetery.

Amjad Amini, Mahsa’s father, was briefly detained on Saturday and subsequently placed under house arrest with his wife. This occurred amid a heavy security presence around their home in the Kurdish-majority city of Saqqez in western Iran.

According to online footage, city authorities have opened the gates of the Cheraghveis dam, located about 17 kilometers southwest of Saqqez. This diversion allows water from the dam’s reservoir to flow through a river, effectively blocking access roads to the Ayyachi Cemetery, where Mahsa is buried. Mahsa, a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman, died in hijab police custody last year, sparking Iran’s largest anti-regime protests. Security forces had already sealed off the main entrance to the cemetery on Friday.

On the eve of Mahsa’s first death anniversary, people chanted slogans from their windows in Tehran and many other cities across the country. However, planned street protests for the day have been scarce due to the heavy presence of security forces.

Social media has been inundated with images and reports depicting an unprecedented security presence in Kurdish provinces and major cities, including Tehran, Karaj, Rasht, and Tabriz.

Grassroots activists in Tehran informed Iran International on Saturday that the city’s main squares are crowded with military and an assortment of security forces, including many plainclothes agents. Military riot control vehicles are stationed every 10 meters in some locations, with black vans positioned to contain potential detainees in between. Some neighborhoods in the capital, with limited access to main streets, such as Ekbatan, have been completely cordoned off by vehicles as security forces patrol the area continuously.

Checkpoint inspections have been established at the entrances to all Kurdish-populated cities, resulting in significant traffic congestion and thorough searches of both passengers and vehicles.

Calls for action by foreign-based activists continue, with numerous Iranian expatriates holding gatherings in several European cities, including Brussels and Paris. Rallies were held in Australia, New Zealand, and Japan earlier in the day.

However, state media claim Amini’s hometown of Saqqez was “completely quiet” and that calls for strikes and protests in Kurdish areas had failed due to “the presence of security and military forces”.

IRNA quoted an official in the Kordestan province as saying, “A number of agents affiliated with counter-revolutionary groups who had planned to create chaos and prepare media fodder were arrested in the early hours of this morning.”

In the protests that followed Amini’s death more than 500 people, including 71 minors, were killed, hundreds injured and thousands arrested, rights groups said. Iran carried out seven executions linked to the unrest.

Source » iranintl