Iran judiciary chief calls for tough action against unrest

Iranian competition climber Elnaz Rekabi voiced support for nationwide protests in the country by sharing the names of people killed during the unrest in an Instagram story and describing them as “the children of Iran.”

Rekabi drew global attention in 2022 after she competed without a headscarf at the Asian Championships in Seoul following protests triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

After returning to Iran, Rekabi faced pressure from authorities, was kept under tight security for a period and saw her family villa in Zanjan demolished by state bodies. She later left Iran and now lives and continues her career in Canada.

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A group of protesters chanted “Death to the principle of velayat-e faghih,” a reference to Iran’s system of clerical rule, during a rally in the Haft Hoz area of Tehran on Sunday night, according to a video received by Iran International.

Haft Hoz is a neighborhood in eastern Tehran.

Dutch politician Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius said Iranians who stand up to the country’s ruling clerics show exceptional courage and deserve support from the international community.

“The courage of the people in Iran to rise up and resist the Iranian regime and the mullahs is unprecedented,” she wrote on X. “They deserve the support of the international community.”

Yeşilgöz-Zegerius leads the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and previously served as justice and security minister.

A senior adviser to Tehran’s mayor said on Monday that police were exercising restraint during nationwide protests and were barred from using weapons, despite reports of protesters being killed in recent days.

Abdollah Ganji, an adviser to Tehran’s mayor and former editor-in-chief of the state-run Hamshahri newspaper, wrote on X that law enforcement was implementing what he described as a policy of “security containment with tolerance and leniency.”

He said police officers were prohibited from using weapons.

Ganji also sought to minimize the scale of demonstrations, writing that aside from what he described as peaceful gatherings by bazaar merchants in Tehran, no protest had exceeded 150 people.

Protests were held across Iran for the eighth consecutive day, with demonstrations, strikes, and student unrest reported at 222 locations across 78 cities in 26 provinces, a US-based human rights group reported, as the overall death toll rose to 20.

Despite intensified security measures, increased deployment of police and security forces, and continued confrontations in several areas, the geographic spread of protests has remained intact, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said.

Over the past eight days, at least 19 civilians and one member of security forces have been killed, based on the data verified by HRANA. At least 51 people were also injured, most caused by pellet and rubber bullets.

Protests initially began with labor strikes and professional gatherings and have continued with broader street demonstrations, limited trade stoppages, and student protests openly calling for regime change.

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