Night of rage in Iran: Thousands joined a show of force by the country's liberal opposition overnight, between Tuesday and Wednesday, marking three years since the killing of Mahsa Amini, a young woman beaten to death by the regime's morality police after refusing to wear a hijab.
Silent marches were held late at night in the cities of Arak, Isfahan, Karaj and in the capital, Tehran, demanding an end to religious coercion and calling for the downfall of the ayatollahs' regime. In Karaj, west of Tehran, demonstrators chanted "Death to the dictator" and "Death to Khamenei." In Tehran, plainclothes officers attacked protesters in one of the city's central squares, an incident filmed covertly by one of the march participants.
Inside Qarchak prison, political prisoners set fire to a noose they had fashioned, along with their headscarves, in protest against forced veiling and the regime's executions. According to the news site Iran International, the women shouted the slogan "Women, life, freedom" in front of female guards.
The Iranian Teachers' Union declared its support for the demonstrations, calling Amini's death "a turning point" for the Iranian public. "The protest proved that life cannot be normalized under violent repression," the group said in a statement.
In the Kurdish city of Saqqez, Revolutionary Guards' Basij militia units were deployed in large numbers to suppress protests. Police forces were stationed near Amini's grave and in central parts of the city, where unrest erupted in 2022 following her killing. Local merchants staged a strike during the day.
