Protests in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died in police custody. Ebrahim Raisi’s government try to suppress the uprising and restrict the flow of information. Subsequent videos have shown security forces beating and shoving female protesters, including women who have torn off their hijabs. Khamenei, speaking Wednesday to the country’s Expediency Council, again claimed Iran’s foreign enemies had fomented what he dismissed as “scattered” demonstrations.

TEHRAN OCTOBER 12: Protests in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died in police custody, continue to unfold across the country.

Despite attempts by Ebrahim Raisi’s government to suppress the uprising and restrict the flow of information, footage emerging from the country has shed light on the movement and the regime’s violent crackdown.

As the protests enter their fourth week, the Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison explains what the latest footage coming out of Iran tells us about the country.

The demonstrations over the death of Mahsa Amini have become one of the greatest challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the country’s 2009 Green Movement protests. Demonstrators have included oil workers, high school students and women marching without their mandatory headscarf, or hijab.

Iran’s government insists Amini was not mistreated, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beating after she was detained for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. Subsequent videos have shown security forces beating and shoving female protesters, including women who have torn off their hijabs.

Khamenei, speaking Wednesday to the country’s Expediency Council, again claimed Iran’s foreign enemies had fomented what he dismissed as “scattered” demonstrations.

– “Some of these persons are elements of enemy and if they are not, they are in direction of the enemy,” Khamenei said.

Iranian state television, long controlled by the country’s hard-liners, aired footage it described as women protesting in support of the mandatory hijab across Iran. Only Afghanistan and Iran mandate the hijab in law and by force.

Numerous videos have emerged of riot police shooting into crowds, with some likely using live fire. Apparently feeling the pressure from the public, Iran’s police chief, Gen. Hossein Ashtari, claimed on state television Wednesday without providing evidence that “counterrevolutionary groups abroad” wore police uniforms and fired into the crowds. He claimed his officers had made arrests of some of those people.

Sources: VOA NEWS & Guardian News
Image: Matt Hrkac