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Home / World

Iran recruits extremist foreign militias to help with anti-government protests

Daily Telegraph UK
25 Sep, 2022 11:12 PM4 mins to read

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Protests continued over the weekend in downtown Tehran. Photo / AP

Protests continued over the weekend in downtown Tehran. Photo / AP

Iran has recruited extremist foreign militias to help "wipe out rioters from the streets of Tehran".

Demonstrators continued to take to the streets in Iran on Sunday to protest the death of Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after being arrested for incorrectly wearing a hijab.

Militias from Syria, Lebanon and Iraq calling themselves "the volunteers from Islamic lands" announced they were joining the clampdown on public dissent in a social media post.

The group says it is "spontaneously formed" and its members are "willing to give their lives to Ayatollah Khamenei". Its members are followers of Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Quds Force who was killed by a US drone in January last year.

However, Iranian opposition groups have identified them as radical Shia militias that take their orders directly from Iran's Revolutionary Guards, arguing that they have attended several previous mass protests in Iran.

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Iran's foreign ministry on Sunday summoned the British ambassador to Tehran to complain about "the presence of media outlets in London that instigate riot and destruction in Iran".

BBC Persian, Manoto and Iran International TV operate from London and have covered the protests in Iran through their satellite channels.

Dozens of protesters gathered outside the Iranian embassy in London on Sunday where they hurled bricks and bottles at police, as they chanted: "Death to the Islamic Republic". At least five officers were seriously injured and 12 people arrested, Scotland Yard said.

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"We expect peace and justice loving people of Britain to support the Iranians who are struggling for freedom from the repressive mullah's regime, and that includes the new UK government of Mrs Truss," Pouyan Vista, a spokesperson for Iranian Loyalists Organisation told the Telegraph.

Protests continued across Iranian cities on Sunday, with public figures increasingly siding with the protestors and condemning the regime's heavy-handed response, which has led to at least 80 deaths, according to unconfirmed reports.

In a video message from Zurich, where he is currently president of the International Competition Jury, Oscar winner film director Asghar Farhadi invited artists all around the world to demonstrate their solidarity with the Iranian people "during these challenging times".

"You must have heard recent news from Iran and seen images of progressive and courageous women leading protests for their human rights alongside men. They are looking for simple yet fundamental rights that the state has denied them for years. This society, especially these women, has travelled a harsh and painful path to this point, and now they have clearly reached a landmark," Farhadi says in the video.

The #Iranian embassy in #London #UKπŸ‘‡ pic.twitter.com/hJBgqzynDf

— 𝔇𝔯 π”„π”‘π”žπ”§π”¦ (@AdamNN) September 25, 2022

Internet and phone lines have been cut off in the Kurdistan province where Mahsa Amini was from.

In the Kurdish town of Oshnaviyeh, protestors attacked and drove the Revolutionary Guards out of their barracks and seized three bases used by the Basij militias who act as the regime's foot soldiers.

The global internet watchdog NetBlocks has called the restriction to the service in Iran "a curfew style of network disruption" as WhatsApp and Skype stopped operating.

Meanwhile, Iranian lawyers have called on the United Nations to hold a referendum on the future governance of the country.

"In the previous historic cases of free elections in Chile and South Africa where the UN acted in accordance with its Charter to uphold peace and security of the world, the outcome led to change of regimes in a peaceful way. There is no reason why the same cannot be applied to Iran situation where a repressive regime is rejected by millions of its citizens," Saeid Dehghan, a member of the International Association of Lawyers has told London-based Iran International TV.

Protests also continued around the world, including in Glasgow where a large group of demonstrators gathered in the city centre carrying signs which read "Hijab murder" and "no to Islamic Republic of Iran".

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