Indictments have been filed against 221 rioters in Zanjan province, located in northwestern Iran, Ismail Sadeghi-Niaraki, head of the main department of the Zanjan Ministry of Justice, said on Tuesday.
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“So far, 145 of them have been found guilty. Efforts are being made to ensure that the rest of the cases are considered and a decision is made on them as soon as possible,” Sadeghi-Niaraki said.
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Mass riots and protests have continued in Iran since mid-September over the death of a young Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, after she was detained by the vice police. Street riots take place mainly in the provinces of Gilan, Khuzestan, Sistan and Balochistan, Tehran and Kurdistan. The Iranian authorities accuse Western countries of supporting the protesters, who in their media circulate messages of a subversive, anti-Iranian nature, as well as calls for the overthrow of power in Iran. The rioters are systematically attacking and killing members of the security forces – the police, the IRGC, as well as members of one of the major military structures – the Basij.
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At the beginning of November, cases of attacks on clerics and abbots of Iranian mosques in the peripheral provinces of the country became more frequent. Law enforcement agencies carry out mass arrests of people recruited by the intelligence services of Western countries, Israel and Saudi Arabia, and seize large quantities of weapons at the country’s borders supplied to the rioters almost daily.
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On September 13, Amini was detained in Tehran by the vice police and sent for an explanatory conversation to one of the Faraj centers belonging to the police department and military intelligence. In this center, the girl had a heart attack, after which she was immediately taken to the hospital. She died three days later. Residents blamed the vice police for Mahsa’s death. People in different cities of the country began to gather on the streets to protest. Videos have been posted on social media showing girls cutting off their hair and burning a hijab or “Rusari” headscarf, which, according to law, must cover the head of an Iranian woman.
