World

Thousands demonstrated across Iran on Friday at government-backed pro-hijab counter rallies, after a week of bloody protests over the death of a woman arrested for wearing the Islamic headscarf “improperly”.

At least 50 people have been killed by security forces in the anti-government protests, Iran Human Rights, an Oslo-based organisation, said on Friday — more than three times the official death toll of 17, which includes five security personnel. 

The street violence, which IHR says has spread to 80 towns and cities, was triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurd who had spent three days in a coma after being detained by the morality police in Tehran.

As part of the crackdown, Iran has imposed tough restrictions on the use of the internet in a bid to hamper protesters gathering and stop the flow of images of the backlash from reaching the outside world.

The United States announced Friday it was easing export restrictions on Iran to expand internet services, days after SpaceX owner Elon Musk said he would seek an exemption from sanctions to offer his company’s Starlink satellite service in the Islamic republic.

The new measure will allow technology companies to “expand the range of internet services available to Iranians,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said.

On Friday, thousands took to the streets in support of the hijab and a conservative dress code at government-backed counter rallies in Tehran and other cities including Ahvaz, Isfahan, Qom and Tabriz.

“The great demonstration of the Iranian people condemning the conspirators and the sacrileges against religion took place today,” Iran’s Mehr news agency said.

State television broadcast footage of pro-hijab demonstrators in central Tehran, many of them men but also women dressed in black chadors.

– Deadly overnight clashes –

Amini died on September 16, three days after she was hospitalised following her arrest by the morality police, the unit responsible for enforcing the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

Activists said she suffered a blow to the head in custody but this has not been confirmed by the Iranian authorities, who have opened an investigation.

After she was pronounced dead, angry protests flared and spread to major cities, including Isfahan, Mashhad, Shiraz and Tabriz as well as the capital.

In the latest violence, security forces fired “semi-heavy weapons” at demonstrators during overnight clashes in the northern city of Oshnaviyeh, the Oslo-based Kurdish rights group Hengaw said on Friday. The report could not be independently verified.

In nearby Babol, demonstrators were seen setting ablaze a large billboard bearing the image of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in videos shared online. 

Iran Human Rights said that its updated toll of 50 dead included six people who were killed by fire from security forces in the town of Rezvanshahr in the northern Gilan province on Thursday night, while the other deaths were recorded in Babol and Amol.

A previous toll from the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) put the death toll at 36.

Some women demonstrators have defiantly taken off their hijabs and burned them in bonfires or symbolically cut their hair before cheering crowds, video footage spread virally on social media has shown.

Security forces have arrested activists including Majid Tavakoli, who has been repeatedly imprisoned in recent years, including after disputed 2009 elections.

– ‘Bleeding profusely’ –

Demonstrators have hurled stones at them, set fire to police cars and chanted anti-government slogans, IRNA reported.

“The government has responded with live ammunition, pellet guns and tear gas, according to videos shared on social media that have also shown protesters bleeding profusely,” the CHRI said.

Internet access has been restricted in what web monitor NetBlocks has called a “curfew-style pattern of disruptions” amid the angry protests sparked by Amini’s death.

“Online platforms remained restricted and connectivity is intermittent for many users and mobile internet was disrupted for a third day on Friday,” NetBlocks said.

Access to social media services, Instagram and WhatsApp have been blocked since Wednesday night, and connections were still largely disrupted on Friday.

The measure was taken in response to “the actions carried out via these social networks by counter-revolutionaries against national security”, Iran’s Fars news agency said.

President Ebrahim Raisi, at a news conference in New York where he attended the UN General Assembly, said: “We must differentiate between demonstrators and vandalism”.

The unrest comes at a particularly sensitive time for the leadership, as the Iranian economy remains mired in a crisis largely caused by sanctions over its nuclear programme.

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Italian far-right leader Giorgia Meloni closed her campaign for weekend elections in Naples Friday amid speculation her long-forecast victory may be marred by a shift in support in the south.

The 45-year-old leader of the post-fascist Brothers of Italy took questions from a mostly young audience at a final rally on the beachfront before a blackout on campaigning ahead of Sunday’s vote.

“I’m a patriot… we are a party of the south, as well as of the nation,” Meloni declared, vowing to work to help a region that has long suffered higher unemployment and poverty than elsewhere.

The last official polls published two weeks ago gave Meloni and her right-wing alliance, including Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, an almost unstoppable lead.

Most analysts still believe they will win on Sunday, forming the first far-right led government in Italy since the fall of dictator Benito Mussolini after World War II.

But it may not be the landslide they were expecting thanks to both a fall in support for Meloni’s allies and a surge for her rivals.

The Five Star Movement, which swept to power in the last general election in 2018 on a wave of support in the south, appears to be making gains.

Although its anti-establishment credentials had been damaged after sharing power with most of its main rivals, leader Giuseppe Conte, the former premier, has been fighting back.

“The game is not completely up, because I think that in the south, Five Star… will have more numbers than expected,” said Franco Pavoncello, professor of political science at John Cabot University in Rome.

He cited the support in the south for the citizen’s income, an anti-poverty measure introduced by Five Star three years ago — which Meloni has pledged to abolish.

She insisted Friday the state should support those who cannot work, for example for health reasons, but said that those who can should find a job.

She “inspires confidence” said one supporter in Naples, 71-year-old Leone Carmelo.

– Russian, European rows –

From winning just four percent in 2018 elections to a predicted 24 percent today, Meloni’s party has enjoyed a meteoric rise.

A self-confessed “Christian woman and mother”, eurosceptic and anti-immigration, she has eclipsed Salvini as the face of Italy’s popular far right.

But if the League and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia fail to maintain their support, her route to power could be threatened.

As they wrapped up campaigning on Friday, Salvini and Berlusconi were causing headlines over issues dear to their supporters’ hearts — Europe and Russia.

In a round of media interviews, Salvini expressed his outrage at what he claimed was an attempt by EU chief Ursula von der Leyen to interfere in the election.

Von der Leyen told an audience in the United States overnight that the EU might use “tools” if a far-right government in Rome proved as disruptive as Hungary and Poland.

“What is that, a threat?” Salvini tweeted in response. “Shameful arrogance.”

He called on her to resign or apologise, later announcing a sit-in at the European Commission offices in Rome.

Berlusconi meanwhile was forced to clarify remarks about Vladimir Putin after suggesting the Russian leader had been “pushed” by his entourage into invading Ukraine.

“The aggression against Ukraine is unjustifiable and unacceptable,” he said following an outcry.

Russia is one of several fault lines within the right-wing coalition, which could threaten the stability of any government they form.

While Berlusconi and Salvini have long had ties with Moscow, Meloni strongly backed EU sanctions against Russia and the sending of weapons to Ukraine.

Their main rival, Enrico Letta of the centre-left Democratic Party, has warned that a populist eurosceptic government in Rome would be a risk for the EU.

“All those who have told us the Italian right is moderate are lying,” he said ahead of his final rally in Rome late Friday.

“Two days before the vote, taking Putin’s side and requesting von der Leyen’s resignation… what more needs to happen than this?”

Although his party is polling just behind Meloni’s, without a broad leftist coalition — which he tried but failed to create — he stands little chance of taking power.

The European Union is facing a tough balancing act over how to deal with Russians fleeing military mobilisation, as some countries look to block entry and others offer possible refuge.

President Vladimir Putin’s order on Wednesday calling up hundreds of thousands to fight in Ukraine appeared to send droves of Russian men scrambling for the exit in a bid to avoid going to the front lines. 

Flights to countries granting visa-free entry to Russians, mainly neighbouring former Soviet republics, were nearly entirely booked up despite rocketing prices, and queues were reported at some borders.  

So far, the numbers coming to the EU seem modest as the bloc had already curtailed travel from Russia by banning direct flights and toughening up visa rules in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.  

Finland — the only member that had kept its land border open with Moscow — reported that arrivals from Russia doubled to 6,470 the day after Putin’s announcement. 

But despite the small scale, the issue is stirring debate in Brussels as EU members adopt starkly differing approaches to Russians looking to escape the fighting.  

The Baltic states and Poland — which had already gone further than others in the EU by drastically restricting entry for Russians with visas — are leading those taking a hawkish line. 

“Many Russians who now flee Russia because of mobilisation were fine with killing Ukrainians. They did not protest then,” Latvia’s foreign minister, Edgars Rinkevics, wrote on Twitter.

“There are considerable security risks admitting them and plenty of countries outside EU to go (to).”

Estonia’s interior minister, Lauri Laanemets, told local media, “We should not offer protection to deserters.”

“That would be fundamentally contradictory to the aim of all our sanctions so far, which is the collective responsibility of Russian citizens,” he said.

Finland on Friday signalled that it was taking the same track by announcing it would “significantly restrict the entry of Russian citizens” after the uptick in arrivals that followed Putin’s decree.

– ‘Overthrow Putin’ –

At the other end of the spectrum, Germany signalled on Thursday that it may be ready to take in Russians fleeing conscription. 

“Deserters threatened with serious repression can as a rule obtain international protection in Germany,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.

“Anyone who courageously opposes Putin’s regime, and thereby falls into great danger, can file for asylum on grounds of political persecution,” she said.

Berlin’s softer line drew a stinging rebuke from Ukraine’s ambassador, Andriy Melnyk, who insisted, “Young Russians who don’t want to go to war must finally overthrow Putin.”

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said on Friday that it was “monitoring” the situation, amid calls for the bloc to issue guidelines to its 27 member states over how to tackle any arrivals. 

EU ambassadors are set to be briefed on the issue at an urgent meeting on Ukraine on September 26.

The EU struck a landmark agreement in March to open its doors to millions of Ukrainians — mainly woman, children and elderly people — fleeing the Russian invasion. 

But there is far less sympathy for the Russians — mainly young men — who could now seek a way out, even if some argue that not giving them an escape route will end up bolstering Putin’s war machine. 

European diplomats warn that coming up with a common approach will be tough and the Commission appears reluctant to get involved unless the number of arrivals shoots up. 

Immigration is a notoriously thorny theme in Brussels and EU nations fiercely guard their prerogative over the subject. 

European law guarantees a right to claim asylum for people arriving in the bloc. But that is not automatically granted, especially if there is a security risk. 

“This is an unprecedented situation,” EU spokeswoman Anitta Hipper said. 

When we look at the situation at the moment in terms of security, we need to take these geopolitical concerns into account and the risks to our security as well.”

Iran has imposed tough and targeted restrictions on internet use to try to prevent protests and stop images of crackdowns on their demonstrations reaching the outside world, observers say.

Activists have expressed alarm that the restrictions could allow the authorities to carry out repression “under the cover of darkness”.

The latest measures also affect Instagram which is hugely popular in Iran and until now has remained unblocked.

The protests erupted a week ago over the death in Tehran of Mahsa Amini, 22, following her arrest by the notorious morality police. They started in her northern home province of Kurdistan before spreading nationwide.

Internet access monitor Netblocks described the access cuts as the most “severe internet restrictions” in Iran since the deadly crackdown on protests in November 2019, when the country experienced a near-complete internet shutdown.

It said that mobile data networks had been cut — with a fresh loss of connectivity Friday — and that there had been severe regional restrictions of access to Instagram and WhatsApp.

“It’s significantly different to what we saw in November 2019,” said Mahsa Alimardani, senior Iran researcher for freedom of expression group Article 19.

“It’s not as near total and complete as it was back then, but more sporadic,” she told AFP.

“But there are definitely a lot of disruptions and shutdowns happening,” she added, while emphasising that people were still managing to connect sometimes to filtered networks through VPNs.

– ‘Under cover of darkness’ –

Alimardani said the Iranian authorities could be wary of the effect of a total internet shutdown on the economy as well as daily use for things like online medical appointments.

They were also falling back on the National Information Network, an autonomous infrastructure Iran wants to develop as a homegrown internet, she added.

While the restrictions had “added hurdles” to the publishing of videos of the protests however, they were “still coming out”.

The United Sates announced Friday it would ease export restrictions on Iran to expand access to internet services, including anti-virus and malware tools, for Iranians hit by the restrictions.

“While the Iranian government is cutting off its people’s access to the global internet, today the United States is taking action to support the free flow of information to the Iranian people,” said the US special envoy for Iran Robert Malley on Twitter. 

Videos posted on social media have included viral images of women burning their headscarves and demonstrators tearing down images of the Islamic republic’s leadership, as well as security forces firing on protesters.

Iran’s November 2019 protest wave was sparked by a rise in fuel prices. Activists argue that the internet shutdown back then allowed the authorities to carry out bloody repression largely hidden from the world.

Amnesty International says 321 people were killed during that period but emphasises that this only includes confirmed fatalities and that the real toll may be much higher.

The rights group said it was now “gravely concerned about Iranian authorities disrupting access to internet and mobile networks”. Amnesty called on world leaders to take urgent action pressuring Iran “to stop killing and injuring more protesters under the cover of darkness”.

New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) director Hadi Ghaemi had similar concerns.

“The potential for massive bloodshed now is real,” he said.

“The government has blocked internet access because it wants to prevent people from sending evidence of the state’s atrocities to the outside world.”

– ‘Stifle free expression’ –

Instagram head Adam Mosseri has expressed concern over the cuts, while WhatsApp, which is also owned by social media giant Meta, insisted it was not behind any access cuts. They would “do everything in our technical power to maintain our services”, they said in a statement.

Secure messaging service Signal confirmed it remained blocked in Iran and encouraged users outside to set up a proxy server to help people connect.

The blocking of major platforms by Iran in recent years — including Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, YouTube and TikTok — had left Instagram and WhatsApp as the two most widely used social media apps in Iran.

State media reports confirmed that officials had ordered access to these two services to be restricted.

Observers have also noted a regional targeting of the internet cuts, focussing in on the Kurdistan region where some of the fiercest clashes have taken place.

“Disruptions to the internet are usually part of a larger effort to stifle the free expression and association of the Iranian population, and to curtail ongoing protests,” the UN’s panel of human rights experts said.

Vanuatu on Friday became the first nation to launch a diplomatic push for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty, a proposed legal path to phase out coal, oil and gas globally by likening their threat to nuclear weapons. 

In his address to the United Nations General Assembly, President Nikenike Vurobaravu evoked the existential crisis caused by rapid global heating, from hurricanes and coral bleaching to wildfires, prolonged droughts and flooding.

“Fundamental human rights are being violated, and we are measuring climate change not in degrees of Celsius or tons of carbon, but in human lives,” he said.

“We call for the development of a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to phase down coal, oil and gas production in line with 1.5C, and enable a global just transition for every worker, community and nation with fossil fuel dependence.”

The Paris climate accord called on nations to aspire to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a goal that is far off track.

In a statement, the climate campaign group 350 compared the proposed treaty to accords that were pivotal in managing the threats of nuclear weapons and landmines.

Vanuatu, an archipelago home to 300,000 people that lies some 1,100 miles (1,750 kilometers) to the east of Australia, adds its voice to a call that has been endorsed by more than 65 cities and regional governments around the globe. 

These include London, Lima, Los Angeles, Kolkata, Paris and Hawaii. The proposal has also been backed by the Vatican and the World Health Organization.

“The modern addiction to fossil fuels is not just an act of environmental vandalism. From the health perspective, it is an act of self-sabotage,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last week.

– Leading voice on climate –

Tiny Vanuatu is already carbon negative, but it is among the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate change. Its approximately 80 islands are threatened by rising sea levels, droughts and more intense storms. 

In August, it submitted among the most comprehensive climate targets under the UN, including adding cost estimates for how much it required from major polluters in “loss and damage” payments for their historic and ongoing carbon emissions.

The issue is a major sticking point between rich and poor nations, and is set to be discussed at the next UN climate summit, COP27.

Vanuatu has also been leading a campaign to have the International Court of Justice issue an opinion on climate justice and human rights.

Campaigner Kalo Afeaki of Tonga said: “Fossil fuels did this, and if we continue to burn them, we will see more islands in the Pacific, islands like my home of Tonga, disappear. We need countries to be bold, because we have run out of time.”

Without drastic course correction, the world is on track to 2.7C heating by the year 2100, according to the Climate Action Tracker.

This level of warming would dramatically reshape the world’s climate systems, bringing extreme heat to vast swathes of the planet, depleting biodiversity and water availability, and devastating agriculture, among other impacts.