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The nationwide demonstrations were first ignited by the death of Mahsa (also known as Zhina) Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman who died in mid-September after being detained by the country’s morality police. Since then, protesters across Iran have coalesced around a range of grievances with the regime.
The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, told demonstrators on Saturday that it would be their last day of taking to the streets.
“Put aside the wickedness. Today is the last day of the riots. Do not come to the streets anymore. What more do you want from the lives of these people?” he said during a funeral procession in Shiraz.
Salami called the protests a “conspiracy” that is the “product of the joining of polices of the United States, England, Saudi Arabia and the Zionist regime” – messaging that has been used repetitively by the regime.
Iranians protested in the restive southeast on Friday to mark a Sept. 30 crackdown by security forces known as "Bloody Friday", as the country's clerical rulers battled nationwide unrest.
Amnesty International said security forces unlawfully killed at least 66 people, including children, in the incident after firing live ammunition, metal pellets and teargas at protesters in Zahedan, capital of flashpoint Sistan-Baluchistan province.
Iran’s players risked the ire of their government by refusing to sing the national anthem before Monday’s game. The European teams backed off because they were oh-so-afraid of jeopardizing their chances at the World Cup, while the Iranian players went ahead despite knowing security forces back home have arrested, beaten, shot at and even killed those who have dared protest the death of Mahsa Amini.
Iran's judiciary has sentenced three more anti-government protesters to death on charges of "waging war on God", its Mizan news agency reported on Monday, defying growing international criticism over its fierce crackdown on demonstrators.
Iran hanged two other men on Saturday, one of them a karate champion with several national titles, in its attempts to stamp out demonstrations, which have slowed considerably since it began carrying out executions within weeks of arrests.
Iran's currency fell to a record low against the U.S. dollar on the unofficial market on Sunday, amid the country's increasing isolation over its disputed nuclear program, human rights violations and the supply of drones to Russia.
With protests in the Sunni-populated areas of Iran persisting, demonstrations in other parts of the country have waned in the past few weeks amid the state's harsh crackdown on protests.
What began as anger at the hijab law grew into a bigger movement as Iranians said they were fed up with the regime's corruption, economic mismanagement and oppression of its citizens. Now, a visible minority of women in Iran are refusing to wear headscarves, in defiant protest against the government and all of its policies.
Iran announced Monday that the country’s supreme leader has pardoned more than 22,000 people arrested in the recent anti-government protests that swept the Islamic Republic. There was no immediate independent confirmation of the mass release.
Iranian authorities have used torture methods including sexual violence against imprisoned children as part of a crackdown on recent protests, according to rights group Amnesty International.
“Iran’s intelligence and security forces have been committing horrific acts of torture, including beatings, flogging, electric shocks, rape and other sexual violence against child protesters as young as 12 to quell their involvement in nationwide protests,” Amnesty said Thursday.
A report by the group exposed “the torture methods that the Revolutionary Guards, the paramilitary Basij, the Public Security Police, and other security and intelligence forces used against boys and girls in custody to punish and humiliate them and to extract forced ‘confessions.’”