Iran protests swell, as Guards chief says stay home

International demonstrations in support of the Iran protests included this rally at the Place de la Republique in Paris

A picture obtained by AFP outside Iran on September 21, 2022, shows Iranian demonstrators taking to the streets of the capital Tehran during a protest for Mahsa Amini, days after she died in police custody

Students led the way Saturday in protests across Iran over Mahsa Amini's death, even as the commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guards told them: "Do not come to the streets."

Security forces had targeted a hospital and a student dormitory overnight, a rights group said, as the protest movement that flared over the 22-year-old's death entered a seventh week.

Security forces have struggled to contain the protests, which started with women taking to the streets and burning their hijab headscarves and have evolved into a broader campaign to end the Islamic republic founded in 1979.

"Shameless, shameless," students shouted as they clashed with security personnel at a university in Ahvaz, southwest Iran, in footage published by the 1500tasvir social media channel.

The students turned out even as Major General Hossein Salami, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, told demonstrators: "Do not come to the streets! Today is the last day of the riots."

- Gunfire outside hospital -

Ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi appeared Thursday to link the shrine attack, one of the country's deadliest in years, to what his government calls "riots" sparked by Amini's death.

"Death to the dictator," mourners chanted at a ceremony to mark 40 days since the slaying of a protester in the western city of Divandarreh, using a slogan aimed at supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Dozens of people who had gathered outside the same hospital late Friday to protect another wounded protester came under fire, the Hengaw rights group said.

"These forces want to capture Ashkan Mrwati while he is injured," it said, before tweeting an image it said was of him lying on a gurney and responding to a medic.

In online footage verified by AFP, security forces are seen arriving on motorbikes before shooting up into the dormitory building.

- Rising toll -

The demonstrations have continued despite a crackdown that IHR said Friday had killed at least 160 protesters, including more than two dozen children.

Worshippers in Zahedan came under automatic gunfire on Friday as they emerged from weekly prayers, said the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.

The trial of five people charged over the protests for offences that can carry the death penalty opened on Saturday in Tehran, according to the judiciary's news website.

Tehran has sought to portray the protest movement as a plot hatched by its arch-enemy the United States.

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Originally published as Iran protests swell, as Guards chief says stay home