Iran protests rage overnight after Mahsa Amini memorial

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Protests have raged through the night in Iran after thousands of mourners marked 40 days since the death of Mahsa Amini, which sparked a wave of unrest across the Islamic republic.

Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin, died on 16 September, three days after her arrest in Tehran by the morality police for allegedly breaching the Islamic dress code for women.

Anger flared at her funeral last month and quickly sparked protests led by young women who have burned their headscarves and confronted security forces, in the biggest wave of unrest in Iran for years.

More than five weeks after Amini’s death, the demonstrations show no signs of ending, fuelled by public outrage over a crackdown that has led to the deaths of other young women and girls.

Despite heightened security measures, columns of mourners had poured into Saqqez on Wednesday, paying tribute to Amini at her gravesite at the end of the traditional mourning period.

In a widely shared photograph, verified by Agence France-Presse, a young woman without a hijab was pictured standing on the roof of a car, looking into the distance at a highway packed with dozens of vehicles and people.

Mourners chanted at Aichi cemetery outside Saqqez before heading to the governor’s office in the city centre, where Iranian media outlets said some were poised to attack an army base.

“Security forces have shot teargas and opened fire on people in Zindan square, Saqqez city,” the Hengaw rights group said, without stating whether there were any dead or wounded.

Blasts were heard at nightfall as security forces fired on protesters in Marivan, Kurdistan province, in a video published by Hengaw, a Norway-based organisation.

Protesters chanted “Death to the dictator” in the nearby city of Bukan, where bonfires burned in the streets, the rights group said.

Demonstrators had also surrounded a Basij militia base in Sanandaj, a flashpoint city in Kurdistan province, starting fires and driving security forces back, it added. There were similar scenes in Ilam city, near Iran’s western border with Iraq.

Iran’s ISNA news agency said the internet had been cut in Saqqez for security reasons, and almost 10,000 people had gathered in the city.

But thousands more were seen making their way in cars, on motorbikes and on foot along a highway, through fields and across a river, in videos shared online.

Mourners who were clapping, shouting and honking car horns filled the highway linking Saqqez to the cemetery five miles (8km) away, in images Hengaw said it had verified.

ISNA said some of the crowd returning from the cemetery had intended to attack an army base, until they were dispersed by other participants.

A police checkpoint was set alight and fires burned beside a bridge in the Qavakh neighbourhood of Saqqez, according to a verified video.

“This year is the year of blood, Seyed Ali will be toppled,” a group of protesters chanted, referring to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Hengaw said workers had gone on strike in Saqqez, Divandarreh, Marivan, Kamyaran and Sanandaj, and in Javanrud and Ravansar in the western province of Kermanshah.