Dubai

Iran sees ‘major’ internet disruption amid renewed protests

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran suffered a “major disruption” in internet service Wednesday amid calls for renewed protests weeks after the death of a 22-year-old woman who had been detained by the country’s morality police, an advocacy group said.

The demonstrations over the death of Mahsa Amini have become one of the greatest challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the country’s 2009 Green Movement protests. Demonstrators have included oil workers, high school students and women marching without their mandatory headscarf, or hijab.

Iran’s crackdown on protests intensifies in Kurdish region

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran intensified its crackdown Tuesday on Kurdish areas in the country’s west amid protests sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman detained by the morality police, activists said.

Riot police fired into at least one neighborhood in Sanandaj, the capital of Iran’s Kurdistan province, as Amnesty International and the White House’s national security adviser criticized the violence targeting demonstrators angered by the death of Mahsa Amini.

Women students tell Iran's president to 'get lost' as unrest rages, activists say

DUBAI, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Female students in Tehran chanted "get lost" as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited their university campus on Saturday and condemned protesters enraged by the death of a young woman in custody, activists said.

Raisi addressed professors and students at Alzahra University in Tehran, reciting a poem that equated "rioters" with flies, as nationwide demonstrations entered a fourth week.

US, UK hold drone drill in Persian Gulf after Iran seizures

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. Navy held a joint drone drill with the United Kingdom on Friday in the Persian Gulf, testing the same unmanned surveillance ships that Iran twice has seized in recent months in the Middle East.

The exercise comes as the U.S. Navy separately told commercial shippers in the wider Mideast that it would continue using drones in the region and warned against interfering with their operations.

Iranian police deploy at universities as unrest over Mahsa Amini's death churns on

DUBAI, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Iranian security forces deployed at universities in several cities on Wednesday, witnesses said, stepping up efforts to quell more than two weeks of protests ignited by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police.

The nationwide unrest sparked by her death has spiralled into the biggest challenge to Iran's clerical leaders in years, with protesters calling for the downfall of the Islamic Republic founded in 1979.

Iran’s president tries to assuage anger as protests continue

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Tuesday appealed for national unity and tried to allay anger against the country’s rulers, even as the anti-government protests that have engulfed the country for weeks continued to spread to universities and high schools.

Raisi acknowledged that the Islamic Republic had “weaknesses and shortcomings,” but repeated the official line that the unrest sparked last month by the death of a woman in the custody of the country’s morality police was nothing short of a plot by Iran’s enemies.

Iran’s supreme leader breaks silence on protests, blames US

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded publicly on Monday to the biggest protests in Iran in years, breaking weeks of silence to condemn what he called “rioting” and accuse the United States and Israel of planning the protests.

The unrest, ignited by the death of a young woman in the custody of Iran’s morality police, is flaring up across the country for a third week despite government efforts to crack down.

Iran parliament speaker says protests could weaken society

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s parliamentary speaker warned Sunday that protests over the death of a young woman in police custody could destabilize the country and urged security forces to deal harshly with those he claimed endanger public order.

Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf told lawmakers that unlike the current protests, which he said aim to topple the government, previous demonstrations by teachers and retirees over pay were aimed at reforms, according to the legislative body’s website.

State news: 4 elite paramilitary Guards killed in Iran clash

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An attack by armed separatists on a police station in a southeastern city killed 19 people, including four members of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported Saturday.

The assailants in Friday’s attack hid among worshippers near a mosque in the city of Zahedan and attacked the nearby police station, according to the report.

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