Dubai, United Arab Emirates: Iranians took to the streets of the capital on Monday to protest the death of a young woman who had been detained for violating the country’s conservative dress code.
Five people were killed in Iran’s Kurdish region on Monday when security forces opened fire during protests over the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old from Iran’s Kurdistan province, who fell into a coma and died following her arrest in Tehran last week by the morality police.
Two of the people were killed as security forces opened fire on protesters in the Kurdish city of Saqez, Amini’s hometown, the Hengaw Human Rights Organisation said on Twitter.
It said two more were killed in the town of Divandarreh “by direct fire” from security forces, and a fifth was killed in Dehgolan, also in the Kurdish region.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports.
The semiofficial Fars news agency said students in many Tehran universities gathered in protest, demanding an investigation into the death of Mahsa Amini and the dismantling of the morality police, who were holding her when she died.
Witnesses said demonstrators poured into Keshavarz Boulevard, a central thoroughfare, chanting “Death to the Dictator.” They also chanted against the police and damaged a police vehicle. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns.
Read the article in The Sydney Morning Herald (AP,Reuters).