Human rights groups claim authorities in Iran detained Mahsa Amini’s father and prevented her family from holding a vigil to commemorate the first anniversary of her death. Sporadic protests reportedly occurred across the country despite a heavy security presence.
According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), Amjad Amini was reportedly arrested early Saturday as he left the family home in Saqez, western Iran, and was released after being warned not to hold a memorial service at his daughter’s grave 1500tasvir monitor and the Iran Human Rights (IHR) group.
However, a report by the official IRNA news agency denied that Amjad Amini had been arrested. The agency later said security forces had foiled an assassination attempt on him.
The death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman arrested by Iran’s morality police last year for allegedly flouting the mandatory dress code, sparked and sparked some of the largest protests against clerical rule ever seen in Iran international condemnation.
More than 500 people, including 71 minors, were killed in the protests, hundreds were injured and thousands arrested, human rights groups said.
Iran carried out seven executions in connection with the unrest.
As night fell on Saturday, a heavy security presence in Iran’s main cities and predominantly Kurdish areas appeared to have deterred large protest rallies, but human rights groups reported sporadic confrontations in several parts of the country.
Videos posted on social media showed people gathered on a main street in the capital Tehran, cheering on a young protesting couple as drivers honked their car horns in support.
One of Iran’s most prominent prisoners, award-winning human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, and three other female prisoners burned their headscarves in the courtyard of Tehran’s Evin Prison to mark the anniversary, a post on Mohammadi’s Instagram said.
Outside Tehran, a fire broke out in the Qarchak women’s prison as security forces crushed a protest by inmates, human rights groups said. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network said special forces beat women in prison and fired pellets. IRNA reported that the women’s ward in Qarchak was engulfed in fire after convicts awaiting execution set fire to their clothing. It said the fire had been extinguished and there were no injuries.
Protests were also reported in the city of Karaj, west of Tehran, and in Mashhad, northeast of the capital. A video posted on social media showed a group of protesters in Gohardasht’s Karaj district chanting: “We are a great nation and will take back Iran,” while motorists honked and shouted encouragement.
In the Kurdish city of Mahabad, human rights group Hengaw said security forces opened fire, wounding at least one person. It also said several people were injured in the city of Kermanshah, but there was no official confirmation of either incident.
In Amini’s hometown, the semi-official Fars news agency reported that police with a shotgun seriously injured a man who “ignored a warning.” It said the man was in intensive care following surgery, but did not provide further details.
Hengaw identified the man as Fardin Jafari and said he was shot in the head near the cemetery where Amini is buried.
Al Jazeera was unable to verify the report.
Hengaw also reported on Saturday a large-scale general strike in Kurdish areas, with videos and photos distributed that appeared to show largely empty streets and closed shops. Human rights activists in Iran, another group that closely follows events in the country, also reported on the general strike.
But state media dismissed the reports and IRNA said Saqez was “completely calm” and calls for strikes in Kurdish areas had failed due to “the vigilance of the people and the presence of security and military forces.”
The agency quoted an official in Kurdistan Province as saying: “A number of agents linked to counter-revolutionary groups who planned to cause chaos and prepare media materials were arrested in the early hours of the morning.”
Meanwhile, according to IRNA, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards arrested a dual national suspected of “attempting to organize unrest and sabotage,” one of several arrests of “counter-revolutionaries” and “terrorists” reported.
Demonstrations and vigils also took place outside Iran. Protesters gathered in Sydney, Paris, London, Rome, Toronto, New York and Washington, DC to commemorate Amini’s death.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced that a garden in the French capital now bears Amini’s name. The mayor called Amini an Iranian resistance hero and said Paris “honors her memory and her struggle, as well as the memory of the women fighting for their freedom in Iran and elsewhere.”
The Villemin Garden, which now also bears Amini’s name, is located in Paris’ 10th district, next to a canal with popular boat tours.
In Washington, DC, the capital of the United States, hundreds of protesters gathered in a park across from the White House and held up portraits of Amini. Speakers led the crowd in chants of “Say her name…Mahsa Amini” and recited “We are the revolution” and “Human rights for Iran!”
In a statement on Friday, US President Joe Biden said: “Mahsa’s story did not end with her brutal death. She inspired a historic movement – Woman, Life, Freedom – that influenced Iran and impacted people around the world.”
The US, meanwhile, announced sanctions against more than two dozen individuals and entities linked to Iran’s “violent repression” of protests, while the UK imposed sanctions on four Iranian officials.
Iran has blamed the U.S. and other foreign powers for last year’s protests without providing evidence and has since tried to downplay the unrest even as it tries to prevent a resurgence.
In a report last month, Amnesty International said Iranian authorities “arbitrarily arrested and detained victims’ families, cruelly restricted peaceful gatherings at gravesites and destroyed victims’ tombstones.”
Many journalists, lawyers, activists, students, academics, artists, public figures and members of ethnic minorities accused of links to the wave of protests, as well as relatives of protesters killed in the unrest, have been arrested, summoned, threatened or fired from their jobs in the last weeks, according to Iranian and Western human rights groups.
The Iranian daily Etemad reported in August that Amini’s family’s lawyer was also charged with “propaganda against the system.”
If convicted, Saleh Nikbakht faces a prison sentence of between one and three years.