Tehran: Iranian protestors Thursday torched the old home of the regime’s founder Ayatollah Khomeini as demonstrations continued despite fierce crackdown, social media footage showed.
Online videos captured protestors attacking the leader’s old home, which had turned into a museum in a tribute to the architect of the Iranian Revolution that created the Islamic Republic in 1979.
Protestors in Khomein, the former leader’s birthplace and where the museum is located, chanted slogans that demanded the end of the repressive regime as footage showed the property on fire.
News agencies have verified the videos' location, but regional authorities denied there had been an arson attack.
An activist network said the footage was taken on Thursday evening.
Demonstrations in Iran have entered their third month as hundreds of mourners poured onto the streets this week to mark the anniversary of “Bloody November”, when hundreds were killed in 2019 protests over a hike in fuel prices.
Anti gvernment protests in Iran started after Mehsa Amini’s death in police custody in September. Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, died in police custody after she was detained by the morality police allegedly for not wearing her hijab properly.
The Norway-based Iran Human Rights NGO (IHRNGO) group has claimed Iranian security forces have killed at least 326 people since the nationwide protests that erupted two months ago.
That figure includes 43 children and 25 women, the group said in an update to its death toll on Saturday - saying that its published number represented an "absolute minimum", CNN reported.
Among those killed is also Niloofar Hamedi, the Iranian Journalist who had broken the tragic story of Mahsa Amini.
Death tolls vary by opposition groups, international rights organisations, and journalists tracking the ongoing protests.
Public anger over Amini's death has combined with a range of grievances against the Islamic Republic's oppressive regime to fuel the demonstrations, which continue despite lawmakers urging the country's judiciary to "show no leniency" to protesters, CNN reported.
Despite the threat of arrests - and harsher punishments for those involved - Iranian celebrities and athletes have stepped forward to support the anti-government protests in recent weeks.
Remarkable: Protestors in Iran torched the ancestral home (now a museum) of Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of the 1979 revolution, in the town of Khomein. pic.twitter.com/ikWMVVfzfM— Karim Sadjadpour (@ksadjadpour) November 18, 2022
Remarkable: Protestors in Iran torched the ancestral home (now a museum) of Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of the 1979 revolution, in the town of Khomein. pic.twitter.com/ikWMVVfzfM
IHRNGO has urged the international community to take "firm and timely action" over the rising death toll and reiterated the need to establish a mechanism to "hold the Islamic Republic authorities accountable for their gross violation of human rights".
"Establishing an international investigation and accountability mechanism by the UN will both facilitate the process of holding the perpetrators accountable in the future and increase the cost of the continuous repression by the Islamic Republic," IHRNGO director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said, CNN reported.
Since the start of the protests, deaths have been recorded across 22 provinces, according to the IHRNGO. Most were reported in Sistan and Baluchistan, Tehran, Mazandaran, Kurdistan, and Gilan provinces.
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