(Last update: 6:00 pm CET)
Iran’s uprising is entering its marking 33rd day on Tuesday as anti-regime protests continues with protesters continuously taking to the streets.
Protests in Iran have to this day expanded to 193 cities. Over 400 people have been killed and more than 20,000 are arrested by the regime’s forces, according to sources of Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). The names of 224 killed protesters have been published by the PMOI/MEK.
Tuesday’s protest rallies began with student protests in several cities. A spokesperson for the government visited Tehran’s Allame Tabataba’i University, but was met with a protest rally by the students. The students chanted “Shame on you!” in presence of the government official and went on to protest his presence by chanting, “We don’t want a murderer as our guest!” The students continued their protest rally, defying the regime’s oppression of the nationwide protests by chanting, “Canons, tanks & guns are no longer effective!” They also made it clear that they want to overthrow the mullahs’ regime and don’t want to return to the Shah dictatorship. “Death to the oppressor! Be it the Shah or [Khamenei]!” the students chanted.
Protest rallies were also held in Rasht and Tabriz.
Also in Tehran, the students of the Arts College gather for a meaningful performance of Iran’s ancient national anthem. This is in defiance of the national anthem of the mullahs’ regime.
Meanwhile, schoolchildren in Sanandaj and Tehran held protest rallies in streets and chanted anti-regime slogans.
October 18 – Tehran, #Iran
Students of the Arts College gather for a meaningful performance of Iran's ancient national anthem.#IranRevolution2022#مهسا_امینی #آزادی_آزادی_آزادی pic.twitter.com/ElnP7XI746— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) October 18, 2022
College students in Tehran and other cities were holding gatherings and rallying during the day on Monday, as protesters began setting up roadblocks and establishing control over their streets and neighborhoods during the night. Monday night witnessed major protests especially in the cities of Piranshahr of West Azerbaijan Province in northwest Iran, Abdanan in Ilam Province in western Iran, and Bandar Abbas in Hormozgan Province in southern Iran, among other cities and towns.
On Monday, the first reports came from Qezel Hesar prison in Karaj. Reports indicate that inmates at the prison were chanting “Death to Khamenei!” in the prison yard. Sirens and gunshots could be heard from outside. At around 10 am local time, 50 prison guards were stationed on the rooftops of the prison’s buildings with firearms and were aiming at the inmates. The prison warden was seen on the rooftop, shooting birdshot with a shotgun. This incident comes merely two days after a massive crackdown in Evin Prison, in which the regime has killed and injured numerous prisoners.
Eyewitness report from Evin prison
The latest eyewitness reports indicate at least 30 to 40 inmates were killed by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) special NOPO units, adding the names and specifications of those killed are registered in the Evin Prison clinic. Most of these victims were among those inmates held in Ward 7. In Ward 8, where political prisoners are held, there were a number of the regime’s agents collaborating with prison authorities, providing them directions during the attack. A unit of the regime’s anti-riot guards transferred the inmates to the prison yard, forced them to lie on the ground, and began viciously beating them. These beatings continued for hours into the night, the report adds.
The commander of Evin’s security units is an individual by the name of Colonel Mahmoudi and was seen personally attacking and hitting the inmates on their heads with a baton. He was seen hitting political prisoner Arash Jowhari to such an extent that his Jowhari’s eyes began bleeding. Mahmoudi was also seen constantly using tasers against the inmates.
The NOPO unit members were also seen throwing a number of the inmates off the Evin rooftop, the eyewitness report adds. They were also targeting inmates in the prison yard with live bullets and pellet rounds. One inmate looking into the prison yard from a window was hit with a live bullet that wounded his side, the report continues.
Authorities had locked the doors leading to the women’s wards and fired tear gas into that section to keep them contained. The prison yard outside of Ward 8 was filled with blood that had not been cleaned for at least 24 hours. The inmates demolished many security cameras and doors and set fire to one of Evin’s digital control rooms.
A number of the defenseless prisoners had no choice but to strike back at Col. Mahmoudi and another security official by the name of Tavakoli, or else the inmates would have been killed from their beatings, the report adds. If the people of Tehran had not rallied outside of Evin Prison on Saturday night the inmates would have not survived, the report continues, adding if the gates of the prisons remain closed and no one seeks to visit the inmates, there will definitely be further humanitarian catastrophes.
Fifty-one inmates were transferred from Ward 8 while many were still injured. One inmate still had five pellets in his body when being taken away. A group of these inmates was transferred to Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, west of Tehran, while the others were taken to unknown locations.
Reports indicate that prior to this premeditated attack, authorities had informed Mehdi Hashemi, the son of former Iranian regime president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, not to return to Evin Prison after his furlough. Mehdi Hashemi is serving time on financial charges.
Furthermore, Akbar Tabari, a former senior judiciary official, and former Tehran mayor and minister, Mohammad Ali Najafi, were transferred to the Evin clinic before the attack began, the eyewitness report adds.
Monday’s protests
Nightly protests took shape in several cities on Monday. In Piranshahr, northwest Iran, people barricaded roads with fire and overturned dumpsters to prevent the movement of security forces. In Sanandaj, protesters also blocked roads with fire. In Kerman, protesters torched a regime propaganda poster. In Abdanan, people held protest rallies in the streets.
On Monday, student protests were reported in several cities. In Shahrekord, the students of Islamic Azad University expressed their will to continue the protests and the path of all the protesters who have been killed by the regime’s security forces. “For whoever is killed, there are one thousand more [rising]!” the students were chanting. In Ardabil, security forces attacked the demonstration of the students of the University of Medical Technology. And in Tehran, the students of the University of Medical Sciences held a protest rally against the regime and its oppression of protesters.
Student protests continued throughout Monday. In Bushehr, the students of Khalij-e Fars University held a protest rally and chanted “Death to the oppressor! Be it the Shah or [Khamenei]!” reflecting the Iranian people’s rejection of both the mullahs’ and Shah dictatorship. In Shahrekord, students at Islamic Azad University chanted, “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” a slogan that is becoming all the more popular across Iran. In Isfahan’s Najafabad, the students of Islamic Azad University chanted “Mullahs’ must get lost!” And Tehran, the students of Tehran University and Islamic Azad University held protest rallies and called for unity and strike.
Iranian opposition NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi hailed the inmates of Evin and Qezel Hesar prisons, along with brave protesters across the country who continue this revolution and seek to bring down the regime of the mullahs’ Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
“The goal of the Iranian people’s uprising is to bring down the regime of compulsory religion. As the NCRI announced 40 years ago, everyone should be free to choose their beliefs and religion based on the principle of separation of religion and state. The goal is for Iranian women and men to achieve all their individual and social freedoms, including the freedom of choosing their attire. I repeat: No to the compulsory veil, no to the compulsory religion, no to the compulsory regime,” she said in a speech delivered to a rally of freedom-loving Iranians and PMOI/MEK supporters in Luxembourg on Monday.
Let us salute the prisoners whose cries of “Death to the dictator” crossed the thick walls of #Evin to join the chants of their fellow compatriots all over #Iran.https://t.co/9K6pU0NMpY
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) October 17, 2022
These protests 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.
