JEDDAH: Hundreds have taken to the streets in Iran’s restive southeast, footage shared by human rights groups showed, beginning a fourth month of protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death.
The country has seen waves of demonstrations since the Sept. 16 death in custody of Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd who had been arrested for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women.
Protesters in Zahedan, the Sistan-Baluchestan provincial capital, chanted “Death to the dictator,” taking aim at supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to a video shared by Oslo-based Iran Human Rights.
Other images from Zahedan showed crowds of men, some raising posters with anti-regime slogans, and a group of black-clad women marching down what appeared to be a nearby street, also chanting slogans.
Sistan-Baluchestan, on Iran’s border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, had been the site of often deadly violence even before nationwide protests erupted.
The province’s Baluchi minority, who are Sunnis, have long complained of discrimination.
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Taraneh Alidoosti, 38, a prominent Iranian actor and supporter of protesters, was arrested for ‘publishing false and distorted content and inciting chaos.’
Meanwhile, a prominent actor was arrested on Saturday after she voiced support for the protests.
Taraneh Alidoosti, 38, was detained for “publishing false and distorted content and inciting chaos,” the Tasnim news agency reported.
She is best known for her role in the Oscar-winning 2016 film “The Salesman.”
In Germany, a group of Iranians reached the final day of a hunger strike while camped in tents outside the Iranian Consulate in Frankfurt in support of the protests.
Elsewhere, groups of oil workers held protests in southern Iran, demanding higher wages and retirement bonuses.
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The activist HRANA news agency said a group of oil workers protested outside the Pars Oil and Gas Company in Asaluyeh in the southern province of Bushehr on the Gulf.
“We don’t want a lying minister,” the Asaluyeh workers were heard chanting in a video carried by HRANA, referring to Oil Minister Javad Owji. Asaluyeh is a center for Iranian installations exploiting the world’s largest offshore gas field, which Iran shares with Qatar.
HRANA and other social media carried videos and photographs of similar protests by oil workers in areas including Ahvaz, the capital of the oil-rich Khuzestan province, Gachsaran and Mahshahr.
Separately, the regime said on Saturday its uranium enrichment capacity had increased to record levels, a day before UN nuclear monitors are set to visit the country.
“Currently, the enrichment capacity of the country has reached more than twice the entire history of this industry,” Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said.
