Last update 10:30 pm CET
Iran’s nationwide uprising is marking its 81st day as people across the country are launching a three-day campaign of intense anti-regime protests on Monday with merchants and store owners in dozens of cities going on strike. This new initiative is commemorating the nation’s Student Day on December 7.
Locals in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Rasht, Sanandaj, Kermanshah, Baneh, Bukan, and dozens of other cities are on strike and closing their shops in solidarity with the ongoing revolution against the mullahs. Reports early Monday morning indicate the students at Ahvaz University in Khuzestan Province beginning to boycott their classes and joining the nationwide movement.
Protests in Iran have to this day expanded to at least 280 cities. Over 700 people have been killed and more than 30,000 are arrested by the regime’s forces, according to sources of Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). The names of 565 killed protesters have been published by the PMOI/MEK.
In Tehran’s Cheragh Bargh bazar, in addition to strikes, a group of locals gathered to hold protest rallies, in which they chanted slogans against regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei. The protesters chanted, “This whole crowd has come to war against the leader!” and “This is the last message: the entire regime is the target!” Protests were also held in Tehran’s Khajeh Abdollah-e Ansari Metro Station, where demonstrators chanted, “Death to Khamenei!”
Students also held protest rallies in several cities. In Sanandaj, the students of Kurdistan University held a demonstration and called for the release of political prisoners. In Eslamshahr, students of the local branch of Azad University refused to attend classes. In Shiraz, students of University of Medical Sciences refused to attend classes. The students of Tehran’s Science & Technology University also boycotted classes and refused to attend. Ahvaz University was also empty on Monday as students joined the nationwide strikes.
December 5 – Sandandaj, western #Iran
Students of Kurdistan University are boycotting their classes in solidarity with the nationwide protests against the regime on the 81st day of the uprising.#IranRevolution2022#اعتصابات_سراسری pic.twitter.com/DmZHUU7sgE— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) December 5, 2022
Monday was marked with nightly protest rallies in several cities, including Tehran, Zanjan, Mashhad, Isfahan, Hamedan, and Ilam. Protesters blocked streets with fire and chanted slogans against the regime and its supreme leader. “This is the year Khamenei will be overthrown!” the protesters chanted as they vowed to continue the path of the hundreds of protesters who have been murdered by security forces in the past months.
In Tehran, protests rallies were reported in several districts, including Haft Howz, Sattarkhan, Jordan, Chitgar, Ekbatan, Shariati metro station, and Sadeghiyeh metro station. In Ekbatan, protesters held a large rally and gained control of the streets and blocked them with fire to prevent the movement of security forces.
Nightly rallies also continued in several cities across Iran. In Mashhad, protesters blocked roads with fire. In Kermanshah, protesters continued their rallies even after security forces opened fire on them. In Saqqez, protesters responded to the regime’s suppression by setting fire to regime buildings.
On Sunday, protests began with demonstrations by farmers in Isfahan and hospital workers in Shiraz, who continue to suffer from deteriorating living conditions under the mullahs’ regime.
In Shahriar, a city of Tehran Province, local high school students were continuing the protests and chanting “Death to the dictator!” in reference to regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In the Golsar district of Rasht, a major city in northern Iran, locals put up a large banner reading: “We vow on the blood of our compatriots; we will stand to the very end!” Similar measures were witnessed in different cities across the country as people from all walks of life were readying for a new round of massive anti-regime protests starting Monday.
Cities in numerous parts of Iran are more frequently witnessing protesters using Molotov cocktails in an escalating number of attacks against the mullahs’ regime and their interests. This includes targeting members and commanders of the regime’s security forces, and attacks against sites of the Basij, a paramilitary force affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC); centers used by the mullahs to promote the regime’s ideology of hatred, misogyny, and fundamentalism; offices of local Khamenei representatives; and local offices of members of the regime’s Majlis (parliament) in various cities and towns.
Iranian opposition coalition NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi hailed the people who took to the streets on Sunday despite the freezing cold weather to continue the anti-regime protests prior to this week’s three-day campaign.
“Despite brutal suppression, the people of Iran use every opportunity to protest. I salute the students of Karaj and Sari University, Isfahan farmers, the people of Yazdanshahr and Shahriar, and the medical staff in Tabriz, who came out in the freezing cold and snow to say the mullahs’ time is up,” she said.
Despite brutal suppression, the people of #Iran use every opportunity to protest. I salute the students of Karaj& Sari Univ, Isfahan farmers, the ppl of Yazdanshahr & Shahriar, the medical staff in Tabriz, who came out in the freezing cold and snow to say the mullahs’ time is up. pic.twitter.com/woYfmAOsaf
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) December 4, 2022
The protests in Iran began following the death of Mahsa Amini. Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, a 22-year-old woman from the city of Saqqez in Kurdistan Province, western Iran, who traveled to Tehran with her family, was arrested on Tuesday, September 13, at the entry of Haqqani Highway by the regime’s so-called “Guidance Patrol” and transferred to the “Moral Security” agency.
She was brutally beaten by the morality police and died of her wounds in a Tehran hospital on September 16. The event triggered protests that quickly spread across Iran and rekindled the people’s desire to overthrow the regime.
