The Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, a Norway-registered organization that monitors human rights abuses in Iran, said five people were fatally shot during demonstrations in Iran’s Kurdish region on Monday. At the weekend, 75 others were injured in other cities.
CNN was unable to independently verify the reports of the deaths and injuries.
The protests erupted after the death of Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman who died in Tehran last week after being arrested by Iran’s Morality Police.
Iranian officials said Amini died on Friday after suffering a “heart attack” and falling into a coma following her arrest last Tuesday. However, her family said she had no pre-existing heart condition, said Emtedad News, an Iranian pro-reform media outlet that claimed to have spoken to Amini’s father.
Edited surveillance camera footage released by Iranian state media appeared to show Amini collapsing at a “re-education” center where she was taken for “tutorials” on her clothes.
Iran’s Morality Police are part of the country’s law enforcement and tasked with enforcing the Islamic Republic’s strict social rules, including the dress code that requires women to wear a headscarf or hijab in public.
Iranian police said Amini’s death was an “unfortunate incident” and denied that she was physically injured during detention, Iran’s semi-official Fars News agency said on Monday.
Iranian officials said they performed an autopsy on Amini’s body. On Saturday, Iranian forensic medical organization director Mehdi Forozesh said on state television the results would be released after further review by medical experts.
At a news conference on Monday, Greater Tehran Police Commander Hossein Rahimi said police had “done everything” to keep them alive.
But the police’s statements were not accepted by protesters who took to the streets in Tehran and other cities on Monday demanding justice and accountability.
The semi-official Fars news agency reported that protesters were “unconvinced” by the police’s justification for Amini’s death, claiming she died “under torture”.
After Amini’s funeral service on Saturday, security forces fired tear gas at protesters in her hometown of Saqqez in Iran’s Kurdistan province, Fars said, while the semi-official Iranian news agency Mehr said the protesters demanded responses from police and allegedly threw stones at the governor’s office .
Fars also released a video showing protesters demonstrating and chanting slogans against officials in the Kurdistan province’s capital, Sanandaj, late Sunday.
A video shared by the Free Union of Iranian Workers showed protesters in Sanandaj chanting “Death to the dictator.” Another video showed women in Tehran taking off their hijabs and waving them in protest.
Separately, internet watchdog NetBlocks said on Monday that its real-time data showed a “near-total internet connectivity disruption in Sanandaj.”