Anti-Regime Chants Echo In Eastern Iranian Province After Friday Prayer

Protesters in the eastern Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan took to the streets after Friday prayer, calling for more freedoms, the release of all political prisoners and the downfall of the clerical regime.

According to images published on social media on December 9, residents of the provincial capital, Zahedan, carried the Iranian three-color flag without the emblem of the Islamic Republic and chanted, "Women, Life, Freedom".

The slogans "I will kill whoever killed my brother", "Death to Khamenei" and "Death to Basiji", in references to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the members of the paramilitary Basij force, were also chanted by the demonstrators.

A group of women was filmed shouting, "This is the last warning, if you execute, there will be a rebellion."

Protesters also came to the streets of Khash with the slogan, "Death to Khamenei."

Iran has been gripped by anti-government demonstrations for more than 12 weeks, posing one of the biggest threats to the clerical regime since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The protest movement was triggered by the September death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of morality police. Amini had been arrested for an alleged breach of the country’s strict dress code.

Iranian security forces have responded to the protests by unleashing a brutal crackdown that has killed more than 440 people, including dozens of children, according to activists. At least 18,000 people have reportedly been arrested.

The demonstrations and state clampdown has been particularly intense in the country’s western Kurdish areas and Sistan and Baluchistan, home to a Sunni Baluch minority.