TEHRAN
Iranian students defied warnings from the feared Revolutionary Guards and Basij militia that nationwide protests must end by Sunday, prompting a fierce response from riot police and militia, videos on social media showed.
Iranians from all walks of life have been protesting since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police after she was arrested for attire deemed inappropriate.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards top commander warned protesters that Saturday would be their last day of taking to the streets, the harshest warning yet by Iranian authorities.
Nevertheless, videos on social media, unverifiable by Reuters, showed confrontations between students and riot police and Basij forces in universities all over Iran.
Security forces tried to block students inside university buildings, firing tear gas and in some cases beating protesters with sticks, while the students pushed back, with some chanting “dishonoured Basij get lost” and “Death to Khamenei”.
The Guards and its affiliated Basij force have crushed dissent in the past. They said on Sunday, “seditionists” were insulting them at universities and in the streets, and warned they may use more force if the anti-government unrest continued.
“So far, Basijis have shown restraint and they have been patient,” the head of the Revolutionary Guards in the Khorasan Junubi province, Brigadier General Mohammadreza Mahdavi, was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA.
“But it will get out of our control if the situation continues.”
