ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Dozens of protesters were injured on Sunday as Iranian security forces cracked down on the hundreds gathered to protest against the killing of yet another Kurdish woman at the hands of the authorities in Tehran.
The attack on protesters in Mariwan comes two days after 16 protesters were gunned down in the Baluchi area in southeast Iran by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), raising the number of people killed to 304 across the country, including 41 children.
Nasrin Ghaderi, a woman from the city of Mariwan who resided in Tehran, was hit several times in the head during a protest in the capital, sending her into a coma and later passing away in hospital on Saturday night. The family was prevented from burying her in Mariwan, as they had wished to do, and were forced by the intelligence services to have a funeral without anyone present.
The city in the Kurdish area of western Iran (Rojhelat) has seen continuous protests since the death of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini on September 16 at the hands of security forces. Mariwan has also witnessed strike after strike, with protesters chanting “death to Khamenei,” a reference to the country’s ultimate decision maker Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has dismissed the eight-week long demonstrations as a ploy from the US and Israel.
“Ghaderi family are our close family friends and our neighbor … the daughter of the family Nasrin Ghaderi was murdered with repeated baton strikes during protest in Tehran,” Soran Mansournia an activist whose brother was killed in the 2019 protests in Iran said. “The security forces stole the body on its way to Mariwan and pressured her father Shater Ahmad to say his daughter had a seizure or the security forces would bury the body in an undisclosed location.”
State-run news agency IRNA quoted Ghaderi’s father as saying that she had a seizure which was complicated by a recent bout of influenza.
Hengaw Organization for Human Rights which monitors violations in the Kurdish areas in west and northwest Iran reported that 35 people were wounded by the security forces. Videos from the scene published by the watchdog showed a large number of riot police in armored vehicles had surrounded the family house of Ghaderi.
Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), another organization monitoring violations in the Kurdish areas said that the security forces used teargas and pellet guns, and that at least ten people were wounded.
The Kurdish areas have been the main engine of the protest movement with at least 61 Kurdish protesters killed including 11 children. More than 4,000 have been detained in the Kurdish areas.
Security forces on Friday carried out yet another massacre in the southeast of the country in the Baluchestan region where 16 protesters were gunned down with live ammunition, as depicted in dramatic videos taken by protesters in the town of Khash. Protesters were demanding answers about the September 30 massacre in which at least 92 Baluchi protesters were killed in the city of Zahedan.
