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Student women are angry and say to the president of Iran, “Get out of the way”.

Student women are angry and say to the president of Iran, "Get out of the way".
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DUBAI, Oct 8 (Reuters) – Female students in Tehran chanted “get lost” as Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi visited their university campus on Saturday and condemned protesters angry over the death of a young woman in prison.

Raisi, who has entered the fourth week of nationwide demonstrations, addressed the professors and students of Alzahra University in Tehran and recited a poem equating the “rioters” with flies.

“They imagine that they can achieve their evil goals in universities,” Raisi said on state television. Unbeknownst to them, our students and professors are vigilant and will not allow the enemy to realize their malicious goals.

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In a video posted on Twitter by the activist website 1500tasvir, female students chanted slogans of “The Chief is gone” and “The mullahs are gone” when the president visited their campus. In another video circulating on social networks, students chanted “We don’t want a corrupt guest” referring to Raisi.

Reuters could not immediately verify the videos.

State media said on Friday that a state coroner’s report denied that 22-year-old Mahsa Ami died from blows to the head and limbs while in police custody and linked her death to pre-existing medical conditions.

Iranian Kurd Amini was arrested in Tehran in September. 13 for wearing “inappropriate clothing” and died three days later.

His death sparked nationwide protests, the biggest challenge to Iran’s clerical leaders in recent years. As angry crowds demanded the ouster of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, women took off their veils in protest against the clerical rule.

The government has framed the protests as a plot by Iran’s enemies, including the United States, and has blamed armed opposition for the violence, which has reportedly killed at least 20 members of the security forces.

Rights groups say there are more than 185 people were killedHundreds were injured and thousands arrested by the security forces who opposed the protests.

Security forces opened fire and fired tear gas at protesters in the Kurdish towns of Sanandaj and Saghez after calling for mass demonstrations on Saturday, according to the Iranian human rights group Hengaw.

A man died in his car in Sanandaj, the capital of northwestern Kurdistan province, and a woman said she was shot by security forces after shouting “shameless” and honking in protest.

A senior police official reiterated that security forces did not use live ammunition and told state media that the man was killed by armed opposition.

State media played down the protests in the capital Tehran, saying “limited” demonstrations were held in dozens of areas. It was reported that many market traders closed their shops fearing that they would be harmed in the riots and denied that it was a strike.

But videos posted on social media showed crowds taking to the streets in several neighborhoods of Tehran, including the low-income southern neighborhood of Nazi Abad, in what appeared to be the largest protests in three weeks.

Protests were held in several major cities in videos shared on social networks. One video showed a young woman lying unconscious on the ground after being shot in the northeast of Mashhad, Iran’s second most populous city.

The Norway-based Iran Human Rights Organization said at least 185 people had died during the protests, with most of the killings in the restive southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan.

The broadcast was briefly interrupted as state television showed images of Ayatollah Khamenei on its main evening news, his picture surrounded by flames alongside pictures of Amini and three other women allegedly killed during the protests.

When the Edalat Ali hacker group published its website address, the signature slogan of the protests was “Women, Life, Freedom”. Last year, the group hacked security cameras and exposed the mistreatment of prisoners at the prison, which mostly holds political prisoners. [nL1N2PV1CH}

CALL FOR UNITY

After a weekly meeting, Raisi and Iran’s head of judiciary and parliament speaker called for unity.

“Currently, the Iranian society needs the unity of all its strata regardless of language, religion and ethnicity to overcome the hostility and division spread by anti-Iranians,” they said in a statement.

Hengaw also carried a video of emergency personnel trying to resuscitate a person and said one protester had died after being shot in the abdomen by security forces in Sanandaj. Reuters could not verify the video.

One of the schools in Saqez city’s square was filled with girls chanting “Woman, life, freedom”, Hengaw reported.

The widely followed 1500tasvir Twitter account also reported shootings at protesters in the two northwestern Kurdish cities.

A university student who was on his way to join protests in Tehran said he was not afraid of being arrested or even killed.

“They can kill us, arrest us but we will not remain silent anymore. Our classmates are in jail. How can we remain silent?” the student, who asked to remain anonymous, told Reuters.

Internet watchdog NetBlocks said the internet had been cut in Sanandaj again amid protests in Kurdish areas.

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Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Writing by Michael Georgy
Editing by Ros Russell, Nick Macfie and Leslie Adler

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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