Fresh reports reaching the desk of Africa Daily News, New York has revealed that some of the Iranian security forces have reportedly opened fire on some of the protesters who massed in their thousands on Wednesday in Mahsa Amini’s hometown to mark the 40 days since her death.
Amini, who had been a 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin, died on September 16, three days after her arrest in Tehran by some of the the notorious morality police for allegedly breaching the Islamic dress code for women.
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Anger had flared at her funeral and quickly sparked some of the widespread protest which had seen some young women lead the charge, burning their headscarves and also confronting the security forces, in the biggest wave of unrest in the Islamic republic for years.
Despite heightened security measures, some of the columns of mourners had poured into Saqez in the western Kurdistan province to pay tribute to Amini at her grave at the end of the traditional mourning period.
In a viral picture of the scene verified by AFP, a young woman was seen standing on the roof of a car without a hijab head covering, looking into the distance at the highway packed with scores of vehicles and mourners.
“Death to the dictator,” mourners chanted at the Aichi cemetery outside Saqez, before many were seen 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 tear gas and opened fire on people in Zindan square, Saqez city,” Hengaw, a Norway-based group that monitors rights violations in Iran’s Kurdish regions, said without specifying whether there were any dead or wounded.
Iran’s ISNA news agency had also revealed that the internet had been cut in Saqez for “security reasons”, and that nearly 10,000 people had gathered in the city.
But many thousands more had been seen making their way in cars, on motorbikes and on foot along a highway, through fields and even across a river, in some of the videos widely shared online.
