More Protests In Several Iranian Cities In Defiance Of Government's Warning

By RFE/RL's Radio Farda

Iranian cities were again the scene of anti-government protests and at least one strike on November 2, despite a warning from authorities to end the demonstrations.

Videos published on social media show protests in different cities as the outcry that erupted in mid-September after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody continues.

Local sources reported gatherings in the western Iranian city of Sanandaj, where people chanted, "Death to the dictator," a reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Meanwhile, Kolbarnews, a group that monitors the Kurdish-inhabited areas of western Iran where Amini was from, reported on November 2 that shopkeepers from Sanandaj had started a general strike.

The protests took place despite a warning from the commander of Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Hossein Salami, who told Iranians that October 29 was “the last day of the riots."

Since Amini’s death on September 16, thousands have been demonstrating across the country against the clerical establishment.

Videos continue to emerge on social media showing evidence of the government’s violent response to the protests -- a crackdown that the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights says has left at least 277 people, including 40 children, dead.

On November 1, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network and Hengaw, two groups that monitor the human rights situation in Kurdistan Province, published a video from CCTV cameras in the western Iranian city of Baneh that shows the moment a citizen was shot at by armed security forces.

Kurdistan Human Rights Network and Hengaw say that these videos are related to the killing of Mutalib Saeid Piro, who died of a gunshot wound on October 27.

In the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, lawyer Mustafa Nili announced the arrest of several fellow lawyers who represented people detained during the recent protests.

Nazanin Salari, Bahar Sahraian, Mahmoud Taravatroy, and Amin Adel Ahmadian are among the detained lawyers.

Earlier in May, the Shiraz Revolutionary Prosecutor filed a court case against Taravatroy and Salari for defending members of the Baha'i community and issued a summons for trial against them on charges of assembly and collusion against national security.

Meanwhile, the family of Iranian activist Hossein Ronaghi expressed concern over the civil rights leader's health condition.

On November 1, Hossein Ronaghi's father announced that he had managed to meet his son after 38 days in prison. In a video, Ronaghi says that his son is on a hunger strike and that his health is deteriorating.

He also says that the interrogator of the case spoke to him insultingly and threatened three times to kill his son.

Videos of the security forces' presence in two neighborhoods of Tehran -- Ekbatan and Chitgar -- in the west of the Iranian capital have been published showing agents using loudspeakers to threaten residents.

In one of the videos, security officers use sexual profanities in response to the chanting of women.

In another video, one of the security agents tells the residents through the loudspeaker that they are ready to behead their own women and children in defense of the state.

Written by Ardeshir Tayebi based on an original story in Persian by RFE/RL's Radio Farda