New protest flares as Iran sends more troops

Agencies | Tehran                   

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com  

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have built up their presence in restive Kurdish regions, state media reported yesterday amid a crackdown on mass protests, as video showed demonstrations in minority Baluch areas of the southeast.

The mass demonstrations that erupted after the Sept. 16 death in custody of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini spread rapidly across the country but have been most intense in areas populated by ethnic minorities, many of whom are Sunni Muslims.

Activist website 1500Tavsir posted footage it said was from Friday’s protests in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province, with the sound of gunshots and, in one video, demonstrators running for cover.

Reuters could not independently verify their authenticity. A prominent Baluch Sunni Muslim cleric, Molavi Abdolhamid, used his Friday prayers in Zahedan to call for an end to the repression of protests through arrests and killings.

“The people’s protest has shown that the policies of the last 43 years have reached a dead end,” his website quoted him as saying. More Revolutionary Guards armoured units and special forces were heading to the west and northwest border regions, home to the Kurdish minority, several state news agencies reported after earlier reinforcements were announced on Sunday.

The semi-official Tasnim news agency showed a photograph of smiling Revolutionary Guards commanders standing on a military vehicle and saluting a long line of troops. Molavi Abdolhamid also used his sermon to denounce the reported abuse of detainees.

“Things are said about the mistreatment of women in the media that are heavy and I can’t bring myself to say,” he said, apparently referring to reports of alleged rapes of detained women.