Mahsa Amini’s death in Iranian police custody has lit a spark in a nation seething with anger and discontent

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Updated 28 September 2022
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Mahsa Amini’s death in Iranian police custody has lit a spark in a nation seething with anger and discontent

  • Iran says 450 protesters arrested in northern province
  • At least 41 people have died since the unrest began

DUBAI: Protests have spread to almost all of Iran’s 31 provinces and urban cities since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the hands of the police. On Sept. 13, Amini was arrested by a morality police (Gasht-e Ershad) patrol in a Tehran metro station, allegedly for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code.

She was hospitalized after the arrest, fell into a coma and died three days later. Iranian authorities maintain that she died of a heart attack. Her family says that she had no pre-existing heart conditions.

Her death has sparked outrage in a country seething with anger over a long list of grievances and a wide range of socio-economic concerns.

State media reported Monday that authorities in a northern Iran province have arrested 450 people during more than 10 days of protests.

“During the troubles of the past days, 450 rioters have been arrested in Mazandaran,” the northern province’s chief prosecutor, Mohammad Karimi, was quoted as saying by official news agency IRNA. 

On Saturday, authorities in the neighboring Guilan province announced the arrest of 739 people, including 60 women.

Iranian women, fed up with the morality police’s heavy-handed approach, have been posting videos of themselves online cutting locks of their hair in support of Amini. Protesters who have taken to the streets have been chanting “Death to the moral police” and “Women, life, freedom.”

In acts of defiance, female demonstrators can be seen taking off their headscarves, burning them and dancing in the streets. State police have been cracking down on the protesters by attacking them with tear gas while volunteers from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have been beating them. At least 41 people have died so far.

“The internet in Tehran has been cut off. I have not been able to reach family members, but every now and then they are able to get a message through,” an Iranian man who fled to the US during the days of the Islamic Revolution, told Arab News.

Mehdi, who did not want to give his full name, added: “We are hopeful that the government will offer concessions this time. It has been the biggest demonstration since the revolution. We take pride in what is happening in Iran.”

Writing in The Washington Post, Karim Sajdadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, described the protests against the killing of Amini as “led by the nation’s granddaughters against the grandfathers who have ruled their country for over four decades.”

Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Sharia laws in the country require women to wear headscarves and loose garb in public. Those who do not abide by the code are fined or jailed.

Iranian authorities’ campaign to make women dress modestly and against the wearing of mandatory clothing “incorrectly” began soon after the revolution, which ended an era of unfettered sartorial freedom for women under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. During the shah’s rule, his wife Farah, who often wore Western clothing, was held up as a model of a modern woman.

ALSO READ: Iran’s malign theocracy is unraveling before our eyes




The image of protesters destroying portraits of Iranian leaders in the northern city of Sari is just one of many emerging from Iran over the past week in a symbol of anti-regime sentiment. (AFP) 

By 1981, women were not allowed to show their arms in public. In 1983, Iran’s parliament decided that women who did not cover their hair in public could be punished with 74 lashes. In recent times, it added the punishment of up to 60 days in prison.

Restrictions kept evolving, and the extent of enforcement of the female dress code has varied since 1979, depending on which president was in office. The Gasht-e Ershad was formed to enforce dress codes after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the ultraconservative mayor of Tehran, became president in 2005.

The restrictions were eased a little under the presidency of Hassan Rouhani, who was considered a relative moderate. After Rouhani accused the morality police of being aggressive, the head of the force declared in 2017 women violating the modesty code would no longer be arrested.

However, the rule of President Ebrahim Raisi appears to have emboldened the morality police once again. In August, Raisi signed a decree for stricter enforcement of rules that require women to wear hijabs at all times in public.

In his speech at the UN General Assembly last week, Raisi tried to deflect blame for the protests in Iran by pointing to Canada’s treatment of indigenous people and accused the West of applying double standards when it comes to human rights.

When I look at how the women are standing up to the vicious regime that never shied away from genocide, it gives me goosebumps.

Mehdi, who fled to the US during the Islamic Revolution

Raisi’s government, meanwhile, is seeking some form of guarantee whereby the lifting of severe sanctions and resumed business activities by Western firms cannot be disrupted if a future US president rescinds the 2015 nuclear deal. Iranian officials also dispute the concerns of the International Atomic Energy Agency about illicit nuclear material found at three sites and want the IAEA’s investigation to close.

Be that as it may, anti-government protests in Iran are not new. In 2009, the Green Movement held protests over election results believed to be fraudulent. In 2019, there were demonstrations over a spike in fuel prices and deteriorating standard of living conditions and basic needs.

This year’s protests are different in that they are feminist in nature. Firuzeh Mahmoudi, executive director of United for Iran, a human rights NGO, said it is unprecedented for the country to see women taking off their hijabs en masse, burning police cars and tearing down pictures of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (the country’s supreme leader).

It is also unprecedented to see men chant “We’ll support our sisters and women, life, liberty.”

“Through social media, mobile apps, blogs and websites, Iranian women are actively participating in public discourse and exercising their civil rights,” Mahmoudi said. “Luckily for the growing women’s rights movements, the patriarchal and misogynistic government has not yet figured out how to completely censor and control the internet.”




Protests against the death of Mahsa Amini have erupted across Iran, and among the diaspora living around the world. (AFP)

Masih Alinejad, an Iranian political activist who has been living in exile in America since 2009, said that she has been receiving many messages from women in Iran. They have been sharing with her their frustrations, videos of the protests, and their goodbyes to their parents, which they believe might be for the last time.

Declaring that she can feel their anger through their messages, Alinejad said the hijab is a way for the government to control women and therefore society, adding that “their hair and their identity have been taken hostage.”

Scores of Iranian male celebrities have also voiced their support of the protests and women. Toomaj Salehi, a dissident rapper who was arrested earlier this year because of his lyrics on regime change and social and political issues, posted a video of himself walking through the streets saying: “My tears don’t dry, it’s blood, it’s anger. The end is near, history repeats itself. Be afraid of us, pull back, know that you are done.”

For its part, the movie industry released a statement on Saturday calling on the military to drop their weapons and “return to the arms of the nation.”

A number of famous actresses have taken off their hijab in support of the movement and the protests. Mohammad Mehdi Esmaili, Iran’s culture minister, said that actresses who voiced their support online and removed their hijabs can no longer pursue their careers.

In a tweet on Saturday, Sajdadpour said: “To understand Iran’s protests it’s striking to juxtapose images of the young, modern women killed in Iran over the last week (Mahsa Amini, Ghazale Chelavi, Hanane Kia, Mahsa Mogoi) with the images of the country’s ruling elite, virtually all deeply traditional, geriatric men.”




Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi holds up a photo of Quds Force Commander General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. attack, during his remarks at the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly. (AFP)

Iranian authorities have shut down mobile internet connections, disrupting WhatsApp and Instagram services. On Iranian state media, ISNA, Issa Zarepour, minister of communications, justified the act for “national security” and said it was not clear how long the blocks on social media platforms and WhatsApp would continue, as it was being implemented for “security purposes and discussions related to recent events.”

However, Mahsa Alimardani, an academic at the Oxford Internet Institute who studies Iran’s internet shutdowns and controls, said the authorities are targeting these platforms because they are “lifelines for information and communication that’s keeping the protests alive.”

On Twitter, the hashtag #MahsaAmini in Farsi has exceeded well over 30 million posts.

“Everyone in Iran knows that the authorities will crack down very hard on the protesters and kill them,” Mehdi, the US-based Iranian, told Arab News.

“It’s almost target practice for them. When I look at how the women there are standing up to the ruthless and vicious regime that never shied away from genocide to maintain their power, it gives me goosebumps. It takes a certain courage to do what they are doing.”

Looking forward to the future with hope, he said: “The flame has been ignited and we are not the kind of people who back out.”

 


Paramilitary shelling on camp kills 8 in Sudan’s Darfur: rescuers

Updated 6 sec ago
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Paramilitary shelling on camp kills 8 in Sudan’s Darfur: rescuers

The bombardment hit Abu Shouk camp, which hosts tens of thousands of displaced people
Thursday’s offensive comes just days after a series of attacks by the RSF targeted another battleground region of Sudan

PORT SUDAN: Paramilitary forces shelled a displacement camp in Sudan’s Darfur region on Thursday, killing eight civilians and injuring others, a local rescue group said.

The bombardment hit Abu Shouk camp, which hosts tens of thousands of displaced people on the outskirts of El Fasher, the besieged capital of North Darfur.

El-Fasher remains the last major stronghold in Sudan’s western Darfur region not under the control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been at war with the regular army since April 2023.

“The Abu Shouk camp witnessed heavy artillery bombardment by the RSF... killing eight people,” the camp’s Emergency Response Room said in a statement.

In recent weeks, El-Fasher, which has been under paramilitary siege since last year, has been locked in intense fighting between warring sides in a region also gripped by famine.

Thursday’s offensive comes just days after a series of attacks by the RSF targeted another battleground region of Sudan.

More than 450 people, including 35 children, were killed in several villages of North Kordofan, southwest of the capital Khartoum, according to a statement released this week by the UN’s children agency.

“No child should ever experience such horrors,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. “Violence against children is unconscionable and must end now.”

On Sunday, the RSF claimed to have killed more than 470 army personnel near the town of El-Obeid, also in North Kordofan, in a statement posted to its Telegram channel.

Independent verification of casualties in Sudan remains difficult due to restricted access to its conflict zones.

Now in its third year, the conflict has killed tens of thousands and forced millions to flee, creating what the United Nations describes as the world’s largest displacement crisis.

In December last year, famine was officially declared in three displacement camps near El-Fasher, namely Zamzam, Abu Shouk and Al-Salam, according to the UN.

Since the Sudanese army regained control of the capital Khartoum in March, the RSF has shifted its operations westward, focusing on Darfur and Kordofan in a bid to consolidate territorial gains.

In April, RSF fighters seized the Zamzam displacement camp, located near Abu Shouk.

The assault forced nearly 400,000 people to flee, according to UN figures, effectively emptying one of the country’s largest camps for the displaced.

Sudanese analyst Mohaned el-Nour told AFP the RSF aims to redefine its role in the conflict.

“Their goal is no longer to be seen as a militia, but as an alternative government in western Sudan, undermining the legitimacy of the authorities in Port Sudan.”

He added that the recent surge in violence in North Kordofan was likely intended to divert the army’s attention from El Fasher, where the military is trying “at all costs” to maintain.

Europe’s largest missile maker supplying parts to Israel for bombs used in Gaza

Updated 43 min 28 sec ago
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Europe’s largest missile maker supplying parts to Israel for bombs used in Gaza

  • GBU-39 bombs identified as having killed civilians, including children
  • UN special rapporteur: ‘Genocide continues because it is lucrative for many’

LONDON: Parts made by Europe’s largest missile maker are being used in bombs launched by Israel in airstrikes on Gaza, an investigation has found.

A joint report by The Guardian, Disclose and Follow the Money discovered that components produced by MBDA are used to construct the GBU-39 bomb. 

Wing-like parts, called Diamond-Blacks and manufactured at MBDA’s plant in Alabama, are fitted to the 250 lb GBU-39, which is made by Boeing, allowing the bomb to manoeuver mid-air toward targets. 

The GBU-39 is sent to Israel as part of the US military aid program, bought directly from Boeing and transferred from American military stocks.
Deployed aerially from fighter jets over combat zones, an estimated 4,800 have been sent to Israel since the Gaza war began in October 2023.

Open-source analysis found that the weapon has been deployed at least 24 times in Gaza in incidents where civilians, including children, were killed.
The attacks often came at night, targeting shelters including school buildings, camps and a mosque. At least 500 people have been killed in the identified cases, including more than 100 children.

The UN and Amnesty International have both raised concerns that a number of incidents involving GBU-39s amount to war crimes.

Donatella Rovera, a senior investigator at Amnesty, told The Guardian: “Those launching attacks have a legal duty to take precautions so as to avoid harming civilians — even in cases where there may be a military target at the location — including by not striking locations full of civilians.”

Last year, Foreign Secretary David Lammy suspended a number of arms export licenses to Israel over fears that UK-made equipment could be used to commit “serious violations” of international law in Gaza.

But campaigners told The Guardian that the use of Diamond-Black wings, manufactured in the US, shows the limits of the UK government’s measures, which cannot ban the export of items made overseas by sister companies of British firms.

Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, said in a report last month that numerous private sector firms continue to arm Israel despite warnings of human rights violations, war crimes and genocide in Gaza. 

“The present report shows why the genocide carried out by Israel continues: because it is lucrative for many,” she added.

Sam Perlo-Freeman, research coordinator at Campaign Against the Arms Trade, told The Guardian: “We would support the UK government taking all actions that are within their powers to stop the genocide.
“Beyond an arms embargo, this includes sanctions on companies arming Israel, banning UK investments in such companies.”

MBDA’s code of ethics states that it is “committed to taking the utmost care in identifying and preventing negative direct and indirect impacts our activities may have on human rights, fundamental freedoms and people health and safety.”


Israeli strikes on south Lebanon kill two

Updated 17 July 2025
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Israeli strikes on south Lebanon kill two

  • Two people were killed Thursday in separate Israeli strikes on south Lebanon, the Lebanese health ministry said

BEIRUT: Two people were killed Thursday in separate Israeli strikes on south Lebanon, the Lebanese health ministry said, in the latest attacks despite a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah.
The ministry said that “an Israeli drone strike targeted a car” in the Nabatiyeh district, killing one person and wounding two others.
Another strike “targeted a truck in the town of Naqura” in southern Lebanon “resulting in one martyr,” it said in a statement.
The Israeli army did not immediately comment on the incidents.
Israel has repeatedly bombed Lebanon despite a November ceasefire seeking to end over a year of hostilities with Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
Under the agreement, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of the Litani river, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border, leaving the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the region.
Israel was required to fully withdraw its troops from the country but has kept them in five places it deems strategic.


Belgian court orders regional government to stop military exports to Israel

Updated 17 July 2025
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Belgian court orders regional government to stop military exports to Israel

  • Belgian court orders regional government to stop military exports to Israel, Belga reports

BRUSSELS: A court in Brussels on Thursday ordered the regional Flemish government to stop all transit of military equipment to Israel, Belgian news agency Belga reported.
The region is home to the Antwerp-Bruges port — one of the largest in Europe.


Israel to boost defense spending by $12.5 billion amid regional conflicts on multiple fronts

Updated 17 July 2025
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Israel to boost defense spending by $12.5 billion amid regional conflicts on multiple fronts

  • The budget is expected to enable the Defense Ministry to advance urgent deals critical to national security, a statement said

JERUSALEM: Israel will increase defense spending by 42 billion shekels ($12.5 billion) this year and in 2026, the finance and defense ministries announced on Thursday, citing mounting security challenges.

The budget agreement will enable the Defense Ministry to "advance urgent and essential procurement deals critical to national security," the ministries said in a joint statement.

The funding boost comes as Israel remains engaged on multiple regional fronts, including its ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza, marked by heavy casualties and widespread destruction. As well as cross-border hostilities with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and recent strikes with Iran last month in an unprecedented escalation between the two countries.

Israel has also intensified its airstrikes in Syria, targeting sites near the presidential palace and the defense ministry in central Damascus. Meanwhile, it has carried out a series of aerial attacks on Houthi positions in Yemen in response to Houthi attacks.