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Politics

Homes Searched, Residents Arrested In Iranian Kurdish City After Deadly Clashes

November 23, 2022
Akhtar Safi
2 min read
Ammunition used against anti-government protesters in the mainly Kurdish city of Javanrud.
Ammunition used against anti-government protesters in the mainly Kurdish city of Javanrud.

Iranian government forces are conducting house-to-house searches in the mainly Kurdish city of Javanrud, following deadly clashes between protesters and heavily armed troops.

IranWire sources reported a heavy presence of armed forces in the streets, squares and alleyways since the evening of November 22, arresting residents in their houses.

Shopkeepers in the city, located in the western province of Kermanshah, were on strike on November 23 to protest the brutality of the crackdown on peaceful protesters.

Activists say security forces used heavy gunfire against protesters on November 21, killing at least five during an anti-government protest that erupted at the funeral of two people killed the previous day.

Videos circulating on social media show people taking shelter in alleyways as heavy gunfire echoes through the streets. Individuals could be seen lying motionless and bloodied in the streets.

The Kurdish human rights organization Hengaw said seven people were killed, while another group put the toll at five.

The semiofficial Fars news agency reported that security forces were fired upon with live ammunition during protests in Javanrud. It said two people were killed and four wounded.

The country has been gripped by protests demanding more freedoms and women's rights since the September death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of Tehran’s morality police. She had been arrested for an alleged breach of the country's strict dress code.

Security forces have cracked down hard on the protests, which have been at their most intense in the western areas where the majority of the country’s Kurds live. At least 416 people have been killed, including 51 children and 27 women, according to one human rights group. Thousands of people have also been arrested.

At least six people have so far been sentenced to death over the demonstrations, which have grown into a broad movement against the theocracy that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

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