Milan Haqiqi’s grandparents were given an hour to bury his body. The 21-year-old was killed on September 21 during a protest in the city of Oshnaviyeh in northwestern Iran. “The last time I spoke to my son on the phone, he promised to send me the best pictures on the street. I only received the images of his corpseexplains his father, Salim Haqiqi, who lives in Norway. My son wanted freedom and equality. With the other demonstrators, he chanted: “Woman, life, freedom!” Their protest was peaceful. »
Milan was shot dead. Alongside him, two of his friends, Sadreddin Litani and Amin Mareft, aged 27 and 16, also died. According to the Oslo-based organization Iran Human Rights, at least fifty-seven people have been killed in protests that began on September 16 across the country. The wave of protest that has swept through Iran since the disappearance of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old young woman of Kurdish origin, who died three days after her arrest by the morality police in Tehran on September 13, is unprecedented. “What is happening should not be reduced to demonstrationss, explains a sociologist who lives in Tehran and who prefers to remain anonymous. Iran is experiencing a continuous, broad and generalized phenomenon, where protesters do not hesitate to respond to the violence of military forces with violence. We are now witnessing an uprising. »
On the night of Sunday September 25 to Monday September 26, rallies and clashes shook 30 of the country’s 31 provinces, as the movement entered its tenth consecutive day. If they seem to be concentrated mainly in the northwest, in particular in the provinces of Tehran, Kurdistan and Mazandaran, the demonstrations affect the whole country in a diffuse way.
The death of Mahsa Amini had initially provoked a general strike and marches in the Kurdish provinces, suppressed by bullets. Very quickly, other cities took over. Since then, women and men have taken to the streets every day. Most are young, as one protester in Tehran explained. “The street is alive. The fatalism and torpor that have descended on us after 2019 [la dernière grande vague de contestation durant laquelle plus de 300 personnes ont été tuées en trois jours selon Amnesty International] disappearedshe explained, Monday morning, before the Internet was cutIt is by the authorities. The young people are amazing, girls and boys, they are so bold and energetic that they take the older ones with them. This time, I have hope. » Another demonstrator from Isfahan (center), where the protest remains very contained and muzzled for the moment, shares his observation. “People are optimistic. When my mother and my aunts talk to each other, they say: “It is time that we too join the protesters.” »
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