BAGHDAD (AP) — Iran’s supreme chief praised paramilitary volunteers tasked with quashing dissent on Saturday in a televised handle as dozens of eye medical doctors warned {that a} rising variety of demonstrators have been blinded by safety forces throughout anti-government protests.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addressed members of the Basij, the volunteer paramilitary wing of the elite Revolutionary Guard, and reiterated unsupported claims that protesters demonstrating countrywide are “instruments” of the U.S. and its “mercenaries.”
“(The) Basij mustn’t neglect that the principle conflict is with world vanity, or the U.S.,” Khamenei stated within the handle marking Basij week in Iran, echoing earlier statements lambasting the protests as a international plot to destabilize Iran.
Extolling the army and social virtues of the Basij over the many years, Khamenei stated the forces “sacrificed themselves in an effort to save folks from a bunch of rioters and mercenaries,” referring to the latest country-wide unrest. “They sacrificed themselves in an effort to confront oppression.”
The Basij have taken a number one function in clamping down on demonstrations that started Sept. 17, ignited by the loss of life of a younger girl whereas within the custody of Iran’s morality police. Her loss of life sparked months of protests over the nation’s necessary scarf however rapidly morphed into one of many biggest challenges to Iran’s theocracy because the chaotic years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Protests continued Saturday at some universities within the capital Tehran and different cities, in line with social media. Due to a extreme country-wide crackdown by Iranian safety forces, demonstrations have develop into extra scattered. Protesters have additionally referred to as for industrial strikes.
Khamenei’s feedback got here a day after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi met with a gaggle of Basij members and praised their efforts to keep up safety, in line with the semi-official Tasnim information company.
Iran’s ferocious crackdown on dissent has drawn criticism, with at the least 448 folks killed and greater than 18,000 arrested within the protests and the violent safety drive response that adopted, in line with Human Rights Activists in Iran, a gaggle monitoring the demonstrations. Iran has not provided a loss of life toll or numerous these arrested.
In a letter, 140 ophthalmologists raised issues a couple of rising variety of sufferers with extreme eye accidents ensuing from being shot with metallic pellets and rubber bullets, in line with pro-reform Iranian information web site Sobhema and Iran Worldwide in addition to different websites on social media. “Sadly in lots of circumstances the hit prompted the lack of sight in a single or each eyes,” the letter, addressed to the top of the nation’s ophthalmologists affiliation, stated.
The medical doctors requested that the top of Iran’s Opthalmology Affiliation go on their issues in regards to the irreparable harm attributable to safety forces to the related authorities.
It was the second letter from eye medical doctors expressing issues about police brutality and the taking pictures of pellets and rubber bullets into the eyes of demonstrators and others. A earlier letter was signed by over 200 ophthalmologists.
Final week, movies circulated on social media of legislation pupil Ghazal Ranjkesh within the southern metropolis of Banda Abbas who misplaced an eye fixed after being shot with a metallic pellet on her manner residence from work.
