PARIS: Iranian protesters rallied again on Sunday, defying an order by the powerful Revolutionary Guards to stop the demonstrations — now in their seventh week — sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini.

Students gathered overnight across Iran, even after Major General Hossein Salami, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, had warned demonstrators: “Do not come to the streets!” Security forces on Sunday fired gunshots and tear gas at a gathering of students in the flashpoint western city of Sanandaj, where videos showed billowing clouds of smoke amid chants of “freedom”, the Norway-based Hengaw organisation reported.

It also posted a video with the sound of echoing gunfire, and of a 12-year-old girl wailing with her bloody arm peppered with metal pellets, in reports could not independently verify.

Security forces have struggled to contain the protests, which started with women taking to the streets and burning their hijab headscarves and which have evolved into a broader campaign to end the Islamic republic founded in 1979.

Students had protested on Saturday at campuses in Tehran, Kerman in the country’s south, and the western city of Kermanshah, among others, online videos showed.

Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2022