Mahsa Amini: How Much Is Too Much, Mr Khamenei?

From a video made available on twitter by group Edalat-e Ali (Ali’s Justice) on October 9, 2022 Sunday.

Shows a part of a video super-imposing crosshairs and flames on the face of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, over the portraits of Mahsa Amini and three other women who were killed, which interrupted state television live news broadcast.

Anger has been piling up across Iran since the death of Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022, after she was arrested by the ‘morality police’ for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women

Hackers who support Iran’s wave of women-led protests interrupts a state TV news broadcast with an image of gun-sight crosshairs and flames over an image of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In other anti-regime messages, activists have spray-painted “Death to Khamenei” and “The Police are the Murderers of the People” on billboards in Tehran.

“The blood of our youths is on your hands,” rocked Tehran and other cities.

“Police forces used tear gas to disperse the crowds in dozens of locations in Tehran,” state news agency IRNA reported, adding that the demonstrators “chanted slogans and set fire to and damaged public property, including a police booth”.

“Join us and rise up,” read another message in the TV hack claimed by the group Edalat-e Ali (Ali’s Justice).

It also posted pictures of Amini and three other women killed in the crackdown that has claimed at least 95 lives according to Norway-based group Iran Human Rights.

Another 90 people were killed in Iran’s far southeast, in unrest on September 30, 2022.

Sparked by the alleged “Rape” of a teenage girl by a Police Chief in Sistan-Baluchestan province, said IHR.

Women Rebellions

Iran has been torn by the biggest wave of social unrest in almost three years, which has seen protesters including university students and even young schoolgirls chant “Woman. Life. Freedom”.

“Videos coming out from Tehran indicate that there are so many protests, in every corner of the city, in small and big numbers.

In Amini’s hometown Saqez, Kurdistan, schoolgirls chanted and marched down a street swinging their hijab headscarves in the air.

Yet another video clip shows a young woman said to have been shot dead in Mashhad in the country’s northeast.

Many on social media said it evoked images of Neda Agha Soltan, a young woman who became an enduring symbol of the Iranian opposition after she was shot dead at protests in 2009.

We Will Fight

In the face of the violence and the online restrictions, protesters have adopted new tactics to spread their message of resistance in public spaces.

“We are not afraid anymore. We will fight,” large banner placed on an overpass of Tehran’s Modares highway.

In other footage, a man with a spray can is seen altering the wording of a government billboard on the same highway from “The Police are the Servants of the People” to “The Police are the Murderers of the People”.

Several water features in the Iranian capital were said to have been coloured blood-red, the head of city’s municipality Ali Mohamad Mokhtari insisted “this information is completely false.

Outsider’s Flaring up The Protest

Iran has accused outside forces of stirring up the protests, as solidarity rallies have been worldwide. The United States, European Union and other governments have imposed new sanctions on Iran.

Iranian pop singer Shervin Hajipour, who was arrested after his song “Baraye” went viral online and became a protest anthem — appeared back in an Instagram video Sunday for the first time since his release. In a short message, the 25-year-old denied links to any “movement or organization outside the country” and said his song was only meant to “express solidarity with the people”.