TEHERAN (Iran) • Twenty-nine women have been arrested in connection with recent protests in Iran against the compulsory Islamic veil for women, police in Teheran said, adding that the protesters had been "deceived" by foreign forces.
Six other activists were arrested in raids around the country last Thursday, accused of involvement in the large, anti-government protests that had erupted in 80 cities over an array of grievances, and had gripped the country for more than a week in December and last month.
Security forces suppressed those protests and 25 people were killed, but sporadic demonstrations continue to crop up around Iran.
Hardline officials have said the protesters were responsible for those deaths, while the government has said some of the dead committed suicide, a claim that has been angrily rejected by government critics.
One of the hardliners, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, the leader of Friday prayers, said protesters who kill are "unlawful and the verdict for that is the death penalty", state news media reported - a hint that the government response to unrest could turn harsher.
Ayatollah Khatami also said that Iran would never stop producing missiles, which the United States contends is a violation of a United Nations Security Council resolution. "We will produce as many missiles as we wish," he told hundreds of worshippers.
FREEDOM OF CHOICE
People should be free to choose the clothes they wear, and practise their faith as they desire.
US STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN HEATHER NAUERT, responding to the anti-hijab demonstrations in Iran.
DON'T IMPOSE BELIEFS
One cannot force one's lifestyle on the future generations.
IRANIAN PRESIDENT HASSAN ROUHANI, taking a swipe at hardliners who back the compulsory hijab and other religious rules.
Protests against the requirement that women cover their hair with the Islamic veil, or hijab, picked up pace last week in Teheran and other cities.
Witness accounts and social media videos indicate that more than two dozen women have doffed their scarves in public and waved them on sticks, like flags.
An Iranian activist based in the US, Ms Masih Alinejad, who has a show on Voice of America's Persian-language satellite channel, has called on women in Iran to observe "White Wednesdays", wearing white and removing their veils and waving them overhead on sticks to protest against the compulsory hijab and other religious restrictions imposed on women.
The Trump administration, which has condemned Iran over a range of issues including its suppression of dissent, commended the anti-hijab demonstrators last Friday. "People should be free to choose the clothes they wear, and practise their faith as they desire," State Department spokesman Heather Nauert said.
Citing the Teheran police, the hardline Tasnim news agency said last Friday that in recent days, "29 people who were deceived by the propaganda of a campaign named White Wednesdays to remove their hijab were arrested by police".
But discontent in Iran goes far behind the veil, fuelled by a broader range of Islamic lifestyle laws that many people consider outdated, as well as the stagnant economy and blatant corruption.
Some of the recent demonstrations were aimed at President Hassan Rouhani, who easily won re-election last year on a promise to revitalise the economy.
And in an extraordinary show of dissent, other demonstrators called for the ouster of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, denouncing him as a dictator.
For his part, Mr Rouhani insisted that the demonstrators had both a right to speak out and justifications for discontent, and in a swipe at the hardliners, said, "One cannot force one's lifestyle on the future generations."
NYTIMES
